Network Operations Manager

Network Operations ManagerEffortless Office partners with our customers to make IT effortless so they can focus on their business. As a Hybrid Managed Services Provider (MSP) with a focus on providing world-class customer experience, we deliver and fully support secure cloud solutions as well as comprehensive managed IT and network services.Effortless is looking for a Network Operations Manager who is an excellent leader and engineer. This is a player-coach role: you will lead our network engineering team while remaining one of the company's top escalation and design resources for enterprise, high-availability, multi-platform networks.You will own the health, security, and continuous improvement of the networks we manage for our customers and within our own Switch data center infrastructure. We expect you to be proactive: you will not wait for tickets. You and your team will regularly review client environments, find risk, capacity, and performance gaps before they become outages, and bring clear, cost-effective recommendations to our customers and Service Delivery Teams.The ideal candidate has served as a Senior Network Engineer, has the technical depth to earn the respect of senior engineers, and has the leadership skills to develop them. You set a high standard, communicate clearly, take ownership, and care about the customer experience.Position Details:Reports to: PresidentDirect reports: Network Engineers and Senior Network EngineersLocation: Remote with a preference for someone in/near Las Vegas, NV.Travel: Some travel required for data center work, client site visits, and special projects.Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:00-5:00 PST, with 24/7 escalation availability for major incidents and management of the team's on-call rotation.Benefits:Health, dental, and vision insurance401K + employer matchPaid time off and holidaysOpportunities for career growth and developmentTraining and certification supportEssential Duties and Responsibilities:Engineering ExcellenceServes as the company's senior network engineering authority and final escalation point in core routing and switching, network security, and network diagnostics.Designs, reviews, and approves complex network configurations and architecture, including hardware and software technology, site locations, business continuity, disaster recovery, and integration of technologies.Personally assesses and resolves the most complex data network problems and incidents, and leads major incident response through to resolution and root cause analysis.Owns the design, standards, and lifecycle of Effortless's own network infrastructure at our Switch data centers, including Cisco Nexus, Firepower, and SDWAN (Meraki and Cisco Viptela) environments.Sets and maintains network engineering standards, configuration baselines, and documentation requirements in IT Glue, and reviews the team's work for quality and consistency.Reviews analyses and technical feasibility to develop data network deployment strategies, resource requirements, and cost estimates.Proactive Client ImprovementLeads a regular program of proactive network reviews across client environments to find security, reliability, capacity, and performance gaps before they cause issues.Uses Auvik monitoring, ticket trends in Autotask, and assessment data to identify recurring problems and drive permanent fixes rather than repeated reactive work.Assesses data network growth forecasts and ensures business needs are translated into network capacity requirements.Partners with Service Delivery Managers, Technical Account Managers, and ESAs to turn findings into clear, cost-effective recommendations for each client's technology roadmap.Tracks hardware and firmware end-of-life, vulnerabilities, and configuration drift across managed networks and plans remediation.Brings the customer's perspective to every recommendation: leads with business outcomes, not technology features.LeadershipHires, onboards, coaches, and develops Network Engineers and Senior Network Engineers, including technical mentoring and certification planning.Sets clear expectations, holds regular 1-on-1s, conducts performance reviews, and holds the team accountable using EOS tools (Rocks, Scorecards, Issues, To-Dos) in Strety.Manages team workload, project priorities, and resource availability, and plans and coordinates cross-functional or cross-company work.Owns network change management: reviews and approves changes, maintenance windows, and rollback plans.Manages the team's 24/7 on-call rotation and escalation process, and ensures after-hours coverage meets Effortless's service standards.Communicates status, risk, and outcomes clearly to leadership, Service Delivery Teams, and customers, following our CWC (Communicate, Work, Communicate) value.Operations and ComplianceDefines, tracks, and reports on network operations KPIs (see Success Measures below).Manages relationships with network vendors and carriers, including escalations, and supports procurement and licensing decisions.Ensures all compliance aspects of the position and team are known and followed; understands and complies with all policies, codes, and regulations applicable to the position and company, including client HIPAA, PCI, and NIST requirements.Maintains sensitive and confidential information regarding company and customer information.Performs related duties as assigned.Qualifications:Education and Work ExperienceBachelor's degree in information systems, computer science, or a related technical field10+ years of experience with Service Provider, MSP, or enterprise networking or general telecommunications3+ years in a Senior Network Engineer (or equivalent) role, serving as the top escalation and design resource for complex networks (required)2+ years leading engineers as a manager, team lead, or technical lead, with direct responsibility for work assignment and mentoringMSP or multi-client environment experience strongly preferredSpecialized Knowledge and SkillsExpert enterprise networking fundamentals, including complex switching and routing, high availability system design, advanced network security design, Internet services and protocols, and advanced network diagnostics.Demonstrated expert proficiency in at least three of the following, with advanced skills in the balance: core routing, core switching, network security, network diagnostics, and application load balancing.Top expert level analysis and design skills: gathering data on systems issues, defining alternative approaches, assessing business impact, and recommending, developing, and implementing cost-effective solutions.A track record of proactively finding and fixing problems in environments you support, with examples you can walk us through.Proven ability to lead, coach, and hold engineers accountable while staying hands-on.Excellent oral and written communication, including explaining technical risk and recommendations to non-technical customers and executives.Ability to prioritize and manage multiple projects, incidents, and people concurrently.Advanced knowledge of current technologies, tools, applications, and vendors.Certifications (preferred)CCNP Enterprise or Security, or equivalent experience; CCIE a strong plusFortinet NSE, Meraki (CMNA/ECMS), or other vendor certificationsITIL Foundation or similar service management certificationEquipment and ApplicationsCisco Routers (ISR/ASR), Catalyst/Nexus Switches, Firepower and ASA FirewallsCisco Viptela and Meraki SDWAN; Meraki Firewalls, Switches, and WirelessFortinet Firewalls, FortiCloud, FortiClientSophos Firewalls and WirelessSonicWALL FirewallsUnifi LAN DevicesAbility to learn additional network platforms as neededVMware virtualization platforms (Platform9 a plus)Windows Servers and Services (Active Directory, DNS, DHCP)Auvik MonitoringAutotask PSA and IT Glue (or similar PSA and documentation platforms)MS Office, Visio, and collaboration toolsWhy Join EO? At EO, our employees are what makes us special. We are a highly collaborative company with