Senior Network Engineer

STRATEGIC STAFFING SOLUTIONS (S3) HAS AN OPENING!

Senior Network Engineer

Location: St. Louis, MO with some travel.
Will also consider remote candidates in the US who are open to 15-25% travel to St. Louis and plant locations across North America and Europe.
W2 Contract-to-Hire
Salary range: mid $130Ks to upper $160Ks

Job Summary
We are looking for a very senior Network Engineer / Network Architect-level professional who can own the enterprise network platform, establish architecture strategy and standards, lead major technical initiatives, and help drive long-term planning, budgeting, modernization, and investment decisions.

Essential Job Functions

• Define enterprise network architecture strategy and own the multi-year technology roadmap across LAN, wireless, WAN, SD-WAN, data center, and cloud or hybrid connectivity, ensuring a secure, resilient, scalable, and cost-effective global platform.
• Own global Cisco Meraki and SD-WAN architecture, configuration templates, naming conventions, firewall policies, firmware strategy, and deployment standards.
• Set and govern global network standards, reference architectures, hardware and vendor baselines, lifecycle roadmaps, and End-of-Life and End-of-Support plans; make final engineering recommendations for exceptions and strategic platform direction.
• Engineer secure-by-design networks in partnership with Cybersecurity, including vulnerability management, IT/OT segmentation, Zero Trust principles, redundancy, compliance support, and risk mitigation.
• Develop automation and repeatable deployment playbooks for site provisioning, configuration, validation, monitoring, logging, performance measurement, and technical-debt reduction.
• Lead complex technical workstreams for greenfield and brownfield plant deployments, expansions, acquisitions, upgrades, cutovers, and go-live activities; evaluate solution feasibility, cost, risk, and long-term supportability while coordinating vendors, cabling providers, plant teams, and local IT.

Required Qualifications:

• Expert: Enterprise network architecture strategy, multi-year roadmap ownership, and engineering across routing and switching (BGP, OSPF, VLANs), wireless, firewalls, network security controls, WAN, SD-WAN, data center, and cloud connectivity.
• Expert: Cisco Meraki engineering and operations at enterprise scale, including cloud-managed networking, SD-WAN, wireless, standardized configurations, and firmware strategy.
• Expert: High-availability and resilient network design, network segmentation, vulnerability remediation, lifecycle management, and secure integration with identity, endpoint, server, cloud, and security platforms.
• Advanced: Experience supporting multi-site, distributed, manufacturing, or similarly complex environments within a global platform-based infrastructure model.
• Expert: Demonstrated ability to serve as the highest-level network engineering subject matter expert, lead complex technical workstreams, mentor engineers, communicate architecture decisions to senior stakeholders, and produce authoritative standards, designs, business cases, and operational handoffs.
• Advanced: Experience conducting technology feasibility, total-cost, risk, capacity, and lifecycle analyses and translating findings into recommendations that influence infrastructure investment, enterprise expansion, and modernization strategies.
• Preferred Intermediate: Hybrid cloud networking in Azure or AWS; Meraki APIs, REST APIs, scripting, Infrastructure as Code, and network-automation frameworks.
• Preferred Intermediate: ITIL-based operating models, platform or service ownership, global vendor collaboration, and support for mergers and acquisitions, international expansion, or large-scale infrastructure transformation.
• Preferred: CCNP, CCIE, vendor-equivalent certification, or equivalent demonstrated.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor s degree (B.S./B.A.) or equivalent from a college or university in information technology, computer science, engineering, or a related field; minimum of seven years of progressive enterprise network engineering experience; or an equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Relevant certifications such as CCNP, CCIE, or vendor-equivalent credentials are preferred.

*Beware of scams. S3 never asks for money during its onboarding process.