Network Engineer

Job Summary

The City of Kirkland is seeking a skilled Network Engineer with CCNA-level expertise to join our Information Technology team. The ideal candidate is a collaborative team player and a motivated self-starter who is eager to learn quickly and contribute to a dynamic environment. Strong, hands-on experience with Cisco routers and switches is essential. Experience with Palo Alto firewalls is highly preferred, and a current CCNA certification is highly desirable. This role is an excellent opportunity for a driven network professional looking to grow, innovate, and support critical citywide infrastructure.

The Network Engineer is responsible for the architecture, design, analysis, function, fitness for purpose, and daily operation of the network, inclusive of the physical and logical layers of the network, the wide area and local networking, the interface between City Network and cloud services, and the operational level of regional partnerships related to networking. This position is also responsible for ensuring security and compliance based on industry requirements and best practices, including developing and implementing firewall rules and policies that safeguard the City's network. The Senior Network Engineer is a primary point of contact for the City's fiber optic network.

Distinguishing Characteristics: The Network Engineer is the journey-level position in the job series and works with guidance from the Senior Network Engineer. This position differs from the Senior Network Engineer, which is a technical expert and is the primary point of contact for the City's fiber optic network. Essential Functions:

• With guidance from the Senior Network Engineer, designs, engineers, implements, and documents strategies for the City's data centers (on-premises, cloud, hybrid), and remote connectivity. This includes designing and maintaining secure WAN/LAN, public/private network, and fiber connectivity in the city.
• Supports the lifecycle replacement of network infrastructure including routers, switches, firewalls, wireless networking, industrial ethernet, and hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI). Defines network standards and ensures compliance across systems.
• Proactively manages and monitors performance and capacity of the network, virtual infrastructure, cloud services, storage and applications supported by the Network & Operations Division. With guidance from the Senior Network Engineer, designs, costs, and recommends upgrades and changes to maintain adequate performance and capacity to meet growing business needs, while lowering latency and increasing reliability and redundancy. Includes proactively working with vendors for ongoing repairs and maintenance costs.
• Ensures secure access to the City's network by proactively maintaining the City's firewalls and remote connectivity solutions, while enforcing the necessary connectivity protocols. Support the deployment, integration, configuration and ongoing support and maintenance of network security-related solutions.
• Maintains up-to-date baselines for the secure configuration and operations of all network devices, either directly controlled or indirectly supported on the City's network.
• Manages and protects the City's data through effective and documented storage management and recovery practices.
• Enhances operational efficiency and business continuity through virtualization, automation frameworks, and scripting.
• Supports training of other IT staff on network, server, storage, security, or related issues. Updates Senior Network Engineer and IT Leadership on emerging network technologies and cybersecurity best practices.
• Acts as a resource for various network and infrastructure projects which include(s) staff from the Network & Operations division, other IT department divisions, and/or other city departments, external vendors and consultants.
• Manages network software and hardware licensing and support contracts and vendor relationships.
• Support the IT Leadership in developing, implementing, and enforcing security governance through adoption of policies and standard operating procedures.
• Maintains detailed, up-to-date documentation of system configurations, management procedures, problem fixes, vendor support contacts/procedures and disaster recovery procedures.
• Executes and validates all on- and off-site file backup systems to ensure effective disaster recovery, establishes and manages maintenance and job scheduling, and maintains supply inventories.
• Diagnoses and resolves connectivity, performance, and configurations issues in a timely manner. Serves as an escalation point for all network, telecommunications, and City fiber optic network issues.
• Oversees vendors assigned to support network and telecommunications systems, placing trouble calls, managing vendor on-site activities, and ensuring that vendor support is effectively provided to maintain system usefulness and efficient operations.
• Provides twenty-four hour on-call support as part of department on-call support rotation.
• Ensures that network, server, storage and telecommunications software-licensing provisions are enforced in the organization and via system utilities, and that software license and central system hardware inventory records are kept accurate and up to date.
• Maintains detailed documentation for configuration, topology, procedures, and disaster recovery.
• Develops scripts and tools using languages like Python, Powershell, Bash, and Ansible to increase efficiency through automation.
• Fosters a positive and supportive work environment; promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in the workplace, contributing to an environment of respectful living and working in a multicultural society.

Peripheral Duties:

• Performs functions as assigned in the City's emergency response plan in the event of an emergency.
• Serves as a resource for network operations when collaborating with other teams in IT, supporting citywide initiatives, enforcing technology and security standards, etc.
• Collaborates with and delegates activities to the Network Analysts.
• Performs other duties as assigned.