Network Engineer (Contract)

Network Engineer (Contract)

Philadelphia, PA

About Freire Schools

Established in 1999, Freire Schools is a network of four charter schools across Philadelphia and Delaware whose mission is to prepare students from historically underserved communities for success in college and beyond. We're distinguished by our belief in every student who walks through our doors, our strong code of conduct and commitment to peace that ensures a safe environment for all, our sense of family throughout our community, and our joyous and engaged classrooms that focus on academic achievement. As evidence of our impact, in 2023 Stanford's Center for Research on Education Outcomes ranked Freire Schools in the top 15 in the country for academic gains out of 368 charter networks nationwide.

About the Role

Freire Schools is seeking an experienced Network Engineer to serve as an advanced technical resource and strategic advisor for our IT infrastructure. This is a hands-on role that requires both strategic thinking and a willingness to configure, troubleshoot, and document real infrastructure. The ideal candidate is comfortable working independently across a multi-site WAN environment, and managing their own schedule to keep disruption to the school day to a minimum. This is a 1099 independent contractor engagement estimated at approximately 720 hours per year.

Work will be demand-driven and project-based, with extended periods — potentially months at a time — where no support is needed. Contractors must be comfortable with an irregular cadence and should not expect a steady, predictable weekly workload.

Periods of highest anticipated demand include:

• Summer (June–August): Infrastructure upgrades, network projects, and system improvements
• August: Back-to-school readiness, connectivity verification across campuses, and incident response
• January: Support ahead of state testing windows and semester transitions

The selected contractor will work collaboratively alongside our Sr. Director of IT and campus-based IT Coordinators. The Sr. Director of IT handles day-to-day network management and L1/L2 support; this role is intended to provide L3 depth and strategic guidance that goes beyond the scope of internal staff.

Responsibilities

Core Infrastructure Management

• Maintain and monitor all Layer 2 and Layer 3 network infrastructure across three sites, including 36 managed switches (approximately 12 per campus), 3 WAN edge routers, and 3 firewall/security appliances.
• Manage and optimize the organization-wide WAN, ensuring reliable inter-site connectivity for applications, shared services, and the centralized wireless infrastructure.
• Administer and maintain the Cisco Wireless LAN Controller (WLC) and all access points across the three campuses, including firmware updates, RF tuning, SSID management, and client policy configuration.
• Perform routine configuration reviews, firmware and software updates, and change management across all core network devices.
• Maintain per-site VLAN architecture and inter-VLAN routing to segment student, staff, guest, and administrative traffic.

Monitoring and Reporting

• Deploy and maintain network monitoring tools (e.g., SNMP, syslog, or a dedicated NMS platform) to provide visibility into device health, link utilization, and alerting across all three sites.
• Produce a weekly infrastructure health report summarizing AP status, WAN link performance, switch health, and any active alerts or anomalies
• Establish and maintain baseline performance metrics for WAN links, wireless coverage, and switch port utilization; proactively identify degradation trends before they impact school operations.
• Respond to and resolve network outages or performance issues, including after-hours emergencies when critical systems are affected

Infrastructure Consulting & Strategic Advising

• Advise on network design, architecture, and upgrades aligned to a K-12 multi-site environment
• Serve as the escalation path for the school based IT Coordinators at each campus when issues exceed their scope — including switch port failures, VLAN misconfigurations, wireless connectivity issues, and WAN disruptions.
• Collaborate with IT Coordinators and Senior Director of IT during back-to-school network readiness review at the start of each academic year.
• Consult on scalability, security posture, and technology investments as the network evolves
• Support the planning, design, procurement, and implementation of new network infrastructure projects, including switch upgrades, wireless expansions, WAN circuit changes, and firewall replacements.

Documentation & Root Cause Analysis

• Deliver clear post-incident Root Cause Analyses (RCAs) for significant outages and recurring issues
• Document standard operating procedures (SOPs) for common network tasks so that the Senior Director of IT and school based IT coordinators can understand the environment even in the engineer's absence.
• Assist with maintaining accurate and up-to-date network documentation including physical and logical topology diagrams, IP address management (IPAM) records, device inventories, and configuration backups for all three sites.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in administering enterprise-grade network infrastructure, including switches, routers, firewalls, and wireless systems.
• Demonstrated experience managing multi-site WAN environments with site-to-site routing and inter-campus traffic flows.
• Proficiency with managed Layer 2/3 switching: VLANs, Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), port security, and inter-VLAN routing.
• Experience administering firewall/UTM appliances (e.g., Cisco ASA/Firepower, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Meraki MX, or equivalent)
• Experience supporting multi-site organizations; K-12 or education sector experience preferred
• Experience with enterprise wireless infrastructure, specifically Cisco AireOS or IOS-XE Wireless LAN Controllers, including AP provisioning, and SSID/client policy management.
• Familiarity with E-Rate funded network environments a plus
• Ability to work independently with minimal direction and communicate clearly with both technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Must be able to respond to critical incidents promptly, even outside of standard business hours, given the nature of school operations

Preferred Qualifications

• Cisco CCNA or CCNP certification (or equivalent industry certification such as CompTIA Network+, Juniper JNCIA, or Fortinet NSE).
• Exposure to SD-WAN technologies and cloud-managed networking platforms.
• Familiarity with network monitoring platforms such as SolarWinds, PRTG, Nagios, LibreNMS, or Cisco DNA Center.

Terms

• Independent contractor (1099); not an employee of Freire Schools
• Estimated engagement of approximately 100 hours annually; actual hours will vary based on organizational need
• Hourly rate negotiable based on experience; candidates should submit their rate expectation with application
• Work location is a mix of remote and on-site at Philadelphia and/or Wilmington locations as needed

Freire Schools is committed to maintaining a workplace environment that is free from all forms of discrimination and discriminatory harassment, in service of the policy goal to provide all persons equal access to all categories of employment regardless of a person's actual or perceived race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender (including gender identity and expression), age, creed, religion, ancestry, national origin, ethnic background, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, disability, veteran/military status, or any other category protected by state or federal law.