"Network Architect - Milwaukee-based hybrid"

Position Overview

Be The Difference Begins with Great People. Are you looking for a new opportunity where you can make the difference in the lives of students and faculty? We're always looking for highly talented individuals to join our team - people who think big, care deeply, and believe in being the difference in their work and community.

We prioritize student success, access to education, and service in our work to educate well-rounded servant leaders who transform their fields, our society and the world. Our Catholic, Jesuit approach emphasizes student engagement with the world around them and formation of the heart and mind.

We believe in our mission: The search for truth, the discovery and sharing of knowledge, the fostering of personal and professional excellence, the promotion of a life of faith, and the development of leadership expressed in service to others. These core values guide our relationships with our students, each other, and our community.

Marquette University offers a rich and competitive Total Rewards package including medical, dental, vision, 403(b) with up to 8% university match, generous time off package, and tuition benefits for employees, spouses, and dependents with no payback requirement! For more information, please view the Total Rewards Guide.

This is your next opportunity to join an organization that invests in their employees career journey by diversifying their skills, deepening their expert knowledge, encouraging a healthy work-life balance, focusing on personal wellbeing, providing leadership training, and sustaining a culture of respect and inclusion.

The Network Architect is responsible for designing, deploying, and optimizing enterprise-level network solutions using hardware, software, and protocols - both wired and wireless modalities. This role involves collaborating with stakeholders to align network infrastructure with business objectives, ensuring scalability, security, and performance. The Network Architect serves as technical lead on projects and the subject matter expert, providing technical expertise, and maintaining documentation while staying updated on emerging networking technologies. This role also assists in maintaining and troubleshooting endpoints and client issues and provides technical guidance on projects. The Network Architect performs research and testing of new and emerging technologies in partnership with vendors and senior network engineering staff to drive incremental adoption and optimization as part of a team of network engineers, ensuring that the University campus network environment is reliable, available, and performant.

While most of this roles day-to-day work can be done remotely, it is Milwaukee-based hybrid, requiring on-campus presence periodically for both immediate emergency and non-emergency matters. The ability to commute as frequently as is required, and within 1 hour to our Milwaukee, WI campus is essential.

Duties and Responsibilities

1. Designs and develops the overall architecture and configuration standards for network equipment in a large 60+ building campus environment. Provide strategic oversight and guidance for network issues, including backbone routing and switching, edge configuration, Internet related services, and wireless. Ensure network infrastructure documentation is comprehensive and up to date and collaborate on inventories for support renewal work.
2. Designs, develops, and implements network level requirements for zero-trust architecture. Collaborate with the IT Services security team to integrate security solutions and respond to security incidents. Stay up to date on emerging security technologies and best practices to continuously enhance the networks security posture. Ensures that network security policy and practices are followed, implemented, and maintained.
3. Evaluates and analyzes network performance metrics to inform strategic decisions and drive continuous improvements, ensuring the successful operation of the universitys network infrastructure. Identifies and evaluates problems. Determines the risk areas and implement mitigation strategies. Leads the evolution and adoption of network topology to optimize security, availability, and performance aligning with the universitys current and future needs.
4. Work with project managers, network and systems administrators and engineers for planning long-term and short-term networking strategies and the integration of new technologies. Oversee the design and development of network extensions and enhancements incorporating the latest technologies and standards. Establish and maintain relationships with vendors and partners to secure optimal pricing, to develop test plans and "pilot projects" for new and emerging technologies.
5. Lead the configuration and installation of various network devices and services (e.g., routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, VPN, QoS). Utilize established commercial best practices to develop templates and documentation that enhances operational procedures. Oversee network maintenance and system upgrades including service packs, patches, hot fixes and security configurations ensuring optimal performance and security.
6. Participate in after-hours on-call rotation and be available to mitigate network issues during unplanned events. Campus wireless and wired network Techsquad ticket triage.
7. Strong problem-solving, communication, and leadership abilities; capable of explaining complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders.

Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Bachelors degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field

A recognized certification that demonstrates knowledge in designing or managing complex wired and wireless networks

Minimum 7 years relevant experience

Able and available to commute to campus within 1 hour as part of an on-call rotation team

Demonstrated experience managing large network infrastructure, including both wired internal and external core routing, and wireless technologies

Demonstrated experience driving large campus network topology changes in accordance with desired security driven requirements

Demonstrated experience implementing and managing an identity-based network access control and policy enforcement system in support of wired and wireless user and device access management

Demonstrated experience designing and recommending Wi-Fi AP radio, antenna, and device placement to optimize wireless capacity and performance in large, highly occupied spaces

Hands-on experience managing Datacenter switches and various network related services including campus-wide DHCP, DNS

Experience troubleshooting network-related issues with large telecom providers and guiding toward quick resolution

Strong problem-solving, communication, and leadership abilities; capable of explaining complex technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders

Preferred Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) Enterprise Infrastructure or Security, Cisco DevNet Associate, or Cisco Certified Architect

Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) Enterprise or Security or, alternatively, 6+ years of demonstrated large enterprise Cisco-based network management experience

Experience implementing and managing VPN and Firewall infrastructure, preferably Fortinet Fortigate based infrastructure

Experience writing, troubleshooting, and maintaining various automation scripts

Experience working with VOIP technologies and routing voice traffic

Demonstrated experience optimizing Cisco Catalyst Center Network Management (formerly DNAC) for campus network wired and wireless infrastructure management

Experience performing wireless network surveys and design tasks using Ekahau toolset

Strong Cisco-background with demonstrated experience in designing and managing a Cisco based network including Cisco ISE experience