Network Operations Engineer (Contract Position)

The Impact You'll Make

As a Network Operations Engineer at Recursion, you will be instrumental in maintaining the backbone of our technological infrastructure. Your expertise will ensure the seamless reliability, optimal performance, and robust security of our complex network spanning both on-premises data centers and multi-cloud environments (GCP/AWS). You'll be a key player in our dedicated IT Operations team, tackling daily operational challenges, resolving complex issues, and driving the continuous enhancement of our network services that directly support our innovative mission.

The Team You'll Join

Join a highly skilled and collaborative IT Operations team at Recursion, where technology is critical to enabling groundbreaking advancements. This contract position offers a significant opportunity to work on vital IT infrastructure, enhance enterprise-level systems, and directly contribute to the efficiency, reliability, and security that underpins our company's mission. You'll gain exposure to a modern tech stack including on-premises and multi-cloud networking (GCP/AWS) and play a key role in ensuring our infrastructure runs smoothly. This is a 40-hour-per-week contract role based on-site at our headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In this role you will: 

• Oversee the daily operations, administration, and maintenance of core network and security infrastructure, including Wireless LAN (WLAN), Campus/Data Center LAN, DNS/DHCP services, VPNs (Site-to-Site & Remote Access), Firewalls, Network Segmentation, DMZs, Internet Gateways, and Cloud Networks (GCP, AWS).
• Proactively monitor network performance, availability, and capacity using established monitoring suites; analyze trends and implement necessary optimizations to consistently meet or exceed Service Level Objectives (SLOs).
• Lead the diagnosis and resolution process for complex network incidents, connectivity problems, and performance degradation, ensuring timely and effective solutions.
• Efficiently respond to and fulfill network-related service requests from end-users and internal teams.
• Maintain and enhance the security posture of the network infrastructure by implementing, verifying, and auditing security controls, configurations, and policies according to best practices.
• Collaborate closely with the IT Engineering team during the design and review process for new network solutions, providing operational input and ensuring smooth transitions into the production environment.
• Develop, update, and maintain comprehensive network diagrams, configuration documentation, standard operating procedures (SOPs), and operational runbooks.
• Participate actively in an on-call rotation schedule to provide timely response and resolution for critical network issues outside of standard business hours.

The Experience You'll Need 

• You possess a minimum of 8 years of direct, hands-on experience in network operations, with a strong focus on administration, implementation, troubleshooting, and maintenance within enterprise environments.
• You have proven success supporting both user-facing campus networks and complex, large-scale distributed network infrastructure.
• You hold in-depth knowledge of the TCP/IP protocol suite (IPv4/IPv6) and possess extensive practical experience with dynamic routing protocols, particularly BGP, OSPF, and EIGRP.
• You have hands-on expertise configuring, managing, and troubleshooting diverse wired (LAN), wireless (WLAN), and data center network hardware and software solutions (e.g., Cisco, Juniper, Arista, Aruba).
• You exhibit strong, practical experience in network security principles and technologies, including firewall administration (policy management, NAT, logging), network segmentation strategies, DMZ design and implementation, Internet Gateway security, and site-to-site/remote access VPN configuration (IPSec, SSL VPN).
• You are proficient in managing, monitoring, and troubleshooting core network services like DNS (e.g., BIND, Microsoft DNS, Route53) and DHCP.
• You have demonstrable experience utilizing automation tools like Ansible and/or scripting languages like Python for network configuration management, monitoring, or task automation.
• You possess advanced analytical and problem-solving skills, with the ability to systematically diagnose and resolve complex technical challenges under pressure using packet capture analysis and other troubleshooting methodologies.
• You are an excellent communicator, capable of conveying technical information clearly and concisely, both verbally and in writing, to technical and non-technical audiences.
• You thrive in fast-paced, dynamic environments, demonstrating strong time management skills, the ability to prioritize effectively, and a consistent track record of meeting deadlines.

Preferred Qualifications

• Relevant industry certifications such as Cisco CCNP/CCIE (Enterprise, Data Center, or Security), Juniper JNCIP/JNCIE, Palo Alto PCNSA/PCNSE, or equivalent.
• Experience with specific network monitoring and logging tools (e.g., SolarWinds, Nagios, Zabbix, Datadog, Splunk, ELK stack).
• Cloud networking certifications (e.g., AWS Certified Advanced Networking – Specialty, Google Professional Cloud Network Engineer, Azure Network Engineer Associate).
• Experience working within ITIL or similar operational frameworks (Incident, Problem, Change Management).
• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) principles and tools (e.g., Terraform) applied to network infrastructure.
• Experience managing networks in a hybrid cloud environment, including connectivity solutions like AWS Direct Connect or Google Cloud Interconnect.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Telecommunications, or a related technical field.

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