Senior Network Manager

We are seeking an experienced and strategic Senior Engineering Manager - Network to lead our global network engineering and operations function. You will be accountable for the end-to-end network strategy, drive large-scale infrastructure transformation, and lead a high-performing team of network engineers across data centres, core networks, and public cloud environments.

The candidate will have responsibilities across the following functions:

Leadership and People Management:

• Lead, mentor, and grow a team of network engineers and architects across multiple geographies.
• Own hiring, performance management, career development, and succession planning for your team.
• Foster a culture of operational excellence, continuous improvement, and innovation.
• Partner with cross-functional leaders (Cloud, DevOps, Infrastructure) to align network strategy with broader organisational goals.
• Manage vendor relationships, contract negotiations, and escalations.

Network Architecture and Design:

• Define and own the long-term network architecture strategy across data centre, Backbone, and public cloud.
• Design and govern spine/leaf architectures, overlay/underlay networks, VXLAN/EVPN, and SD-WAN solutions.
• Lead architecture reviews and ensure designs meet scalability, availability, and security requirements.
• Introduce and evaluate emerging open-source and vendor networking technologies to improve performance and functionality.
• Drive multi-vendor integration strategies across Cisco ACI, Cumulus Linux, and other platforms.

Network Engineering:

• Provide technical leadership on complex, large-scale network deployments and migrations.
• Drive hands-on resolution of highly complex network incidents and design challenges.
• Define engineering standards, design patterns, and reusable architecture blueprints.
• Govern cloud-native networking patterns and hybrid cloud connectivity.

Network Operations Management:

• Own the operational health, uptime SLAs, and incident response posture for the global network.
• Establish and continuously improve NOC processes, runbooks, escalation paths, and on-call rotations.
• Drive root cause analysis (RCA) and post-incident reviews; eliminate repeat incidents through systemic fixes.
• Oversee network monitoring, alerting, and observability platforms to ensure actionable visibility into all network layers.
• Manage capacity planning, lifecycle management, and technology refresh cycles.

Requirements:

• 15+ years of overall experience in enterprise networking, with roles spanning datacenter, Backbone, and cloud networks.
• 5+ years as a Network Architect or Principal Network Engineer on large-scale global infrastructure.
• 4+ years of direct people management experience, including managing senior engineers and team leads.
• Proven track record of leading network transformations in complex, multi-vendor enterprise environments.

Technical Expertise:

• Deep expertise in networking protocols: TCP/IP, BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS, MPLS.
• Hands-on experience with Cisco ACI design, deployment, and operations.
• Solid understanding of spine/leaf architecture, VXLAN, EVPN, overlay/underlay networking.
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes networking (CNI plugins, network policies, service meshes).
• Proficiency in cloud networking across AWS, GCP, or Azure VPC design, transit gateway, Direct Connect/ExpressRoute.
• Experience with Load Balancers (F5, NetScaler, A10) including SSL/TLS offloading and cypher suite management.
• Hands-on experience with DNS/IPAM tools (BIND, Infoblox, or equivalent).
• Experience with Cumulus Linux or other open-source Network Operating Systems.
• Hands-on proficiency with DevOps and configuration management tools: Git, Jenkins, Ansible, Puppet, Chef.
• Experience with Linux as a network operating system.
• Expertise in network monitoring and observability platforms (e. g., Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios, SolarWinds).
• Hands-on packet-level analysis and debugging skills (Wireshark, tcpdump).

Education and Certifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Network Engineering, or equivalent.
• CCIE (Routing and Switching, Data Centre, or Service Provider) strongly preferred.
• CCNP required; additional cloud certifications (AWS/GCP/Azure) a plus.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience leading network teams in a global private cloud or hyperscale environment.
• Background in site reliability engineering (SRE) principles applied to network operations.
• Experience working in agile/DevOps delivery models.
• Scripting and automation skills: Python, Bash, Perl.