Sr. Manager, Network Engineering
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Before you apply
Salary$171k – $244k
LocationOffice - Chicago
Work modeon-site
Typefull-time
SenioritySenior
Experience10+ yrs
Company size1,001–5,000 people
PostedOct 16, 2026 · 3w ago
Verified live2d ago
At a glanceSummarised by Seekless from the posting.
10+ years of hands-on experience in network engineering, systems administration, infrastructure operations, or DevOps—with at least 5 years in a senior/lead technical role
3+ years of people management experience
2+ years in a financial services or FinTech environment
Deep, hands-on network engineering expertise: strong command of BGP, MPLS, OSPF, and other dynamic routing protocols
Production-grade hands-on experience with Cisco data center LAN switching, Arista edge routing, and Palo Alto firewalls
Strong expertise in MPLS design, implementation, and troubleshooting
Experience with layer 2 technologies (VPLS, multicast, spanning-tree, VXLAN, dark fiber terminations)
Hands-on Linux systems administration with RHEL and Debian-based distributions
Production-grade experience with Kubernetes cluster operations
Proven infrastructure automation experience: Ansible, Terraform, Salt, or equivalent IaC tooling
CI/CD platform expertise: GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Spinnaker, or equivalent
Hands-on observability stack experience: Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic Stack, CheckMk, or equivalent
Strong networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, DNS, TLS/PKI, load balancing, VPN, security architectures
Experience working with Tier 1/Tier 2 global ISPs and configuring BGP routing with external partners and clients
Familiarity with financial data connectivity: FIX protocol, SWIFT messaging, SFTP/FTPS file transfer workflows, market data feed management, and custodian integration patterns
Experience with SOC 2, PCI-DSS, or equivalent compliance frameworks
Solid scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, Perl, or equivalent
Strong communication skills
Experience with hybrid and public cloud platforms (AWS EC2/EKS/RDS/S3); cost governance and FinOps awareness
Familiarity with server virtualization platforms (ProxMox, VMware vSphere, or equivalent)
Hands-on experience with extranet providers and services (TNS, MegaPort, ECX)
Working knowledge of relational database systems (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and time-series data stores in financial contexts
Java application understanding: JVM internals, tuning, GC analysis
Exposure to financial regulatory environments: SEC, FINRA, MiFID II, or similar
Experience with secrets management and certificate lifecycle tooling (HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk, Let's Encrypt)
Leadership certifications or training
Industry certifications: CCNP, CCIE (highly desired), JNCIP-*, JNCIE-*, RHCA, CKA/CKAD, or equivalent
Bachelor of Science (BS) in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field—or equivalent practical experience
Skills
BGP
MPLS
OSPF
VPLS
VXLAN
Cisco
Arista
Palo Alto
Linux
RHEL
Debian
Kubernetes
Ansible
Terraform
Salt
GitLab CI
Jenkins
GitHub Actions
Spinnaker
Prometheus
Grafana
Elastic Stack
CheckMk
TCP/IP
DNS
TLS
PKI
Python
Bash
Perl
AWS
EC2
EKS
RDS
S3
ProxMox
VMware vSphere
MySQL
PostgreSQL
Java
HashiCorp Vault
CyberArk
Let's Encrypt
Benefits
Health insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
401(k)
PTO
Parental leave
Medical leave
Std ltd insurance
About the company
The Team / Who We Are
We build and operate the infrastructure backbone that powers one of the financial services industry’s most demanding SaaS platforms. Our Platform Infrastructure Engineering team manages both the network engineering and systems engineering functions, sitting at the critical intersection of carrier-class networking, data center operations, cloud integration, and financial technology — ensuring that mission-critical investment accounting, portfolio analytics, and data connectivity services run with carrier-grade reliability, 24/7, for over a thousand of the largest hedge funds, asset managers, family offices, insurers and corporations.
About the role
This is a hands-on manager role where you lead through technical depth and strong network engineering expertise. You’ll drive infrastructure strategy, mentor your teams, and spend significant time on the network engineering challenges that define our platform’s reliability. Your domain expertise in network architecture, routing protocols, and data center operations is as critical as your leadership capabilities.
What We Need
We’re looking for an experienced engineering leader who brings strong hands-on network engineering expertise to manage both Network Engineering and Systems Engineering squads. You’ll be the strategic lead for our entire infrastructure platform—from edge routing and firewalls through data center LAN design, all the way up through Linux systems, virtualization, container orchestration, and cloud integration.
This is not a purely people-management role. You’ll stay deeply involved in architecture decisions, technology evaluations, and hands-on problem-solving—especially in network engineering. You need to be credible technically with your teams, capable of diving into BGP routing issues, MPLS configurations, data center network design, and cross-vendor integrations with the same rigor you apply to team leadership and hiring.
You’ll work with our software engineering, security, DevOps, data operations, and client connectivity teams to architect and operate a hybrid on-premises/public-cloud environment where network reliability is non-negotiable. You’ll be both a technical escalation point for complex infrastructure issues and an organizational leader setting direction and mentoring high-performing teams.
Responsibilities
Primary Responsibilities
In this role, you’ll own and contribute to the following:
•
Lead, mentor, and scale both the Network Engineering and Systems Engineering squads; set technical direction, hire high performers, and create a culture of operational excellence and continuous improvement.
•
Own network infrastructure strategy: design and implement scalable data center LAN architectures on Cisco, edge routing on Arista, and edge security on Palo Alto; drive BGP routing strategy for external connectivity with clients, vendors, and partners.
•
Drive MPLS strategy, implementation, and optimization across our hybrid on-premises/public-cloud environment; ensure MPLS-based traffic engineering and failover mechanisms meet carrier-grade reliability standards.
•
Lead data center network operations: manage LAN/WAN/MAN networks, oversee connectivity provisioning, handle infrastructure technology reviews and purchasing decisions.
•
Own full-stack systems engineering: Linux systems administration, hypervisor/VM operations, Kubernetes cluster strategy and operations, CI/CD pipeline architecture, and infrastructure-as-code frameworks.
•
Drive observability and reliability: design monitoring, alerting, and log aggregation strategies; establish SLIs, SLOs, and SLAs aligned with financial platform requirements.
•
Architect and operate the platform’s hybrid cloud footprint: manage on-premises infrastructure, AWS integration, co-location facilities, and ensure seamless connectivity and failover across environments.
•
Champion infrastructure automation and tooling: drive adoption of Ansible, Terraform, or equivalent IaC frameworks; evangelize configuration management and infrastructure versioning practices.
•
Support financial data connectivity: ensure robust integration patterns for market data feeds, custodian integrations, FIX/SWIFT/SFTP protocols, and third-party data vendor connectivity.
•
Partner with Security and Compliance to ensure infrastructure adherence to SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, and applicable financial industry regulatory requirements.
•
Evaluate emerging technologies and vendor solutions; make architectural recommendations grounded in operational maturity, business impact, and team capability.
•
Lead incident response for platform-level outages; drive root cause analysis and permanent resolution of systemic reliability issues.
Requirements
You Are a Great Fit If
You’re a hands-on technical leader with deep expertise in network engineering. You can design a data center network, explain BGP configuration trade-offs with conviction, and dive into a production incident without needing context from your team. You take ownership, ship complex projects, and document what you learn so others benefit. You’re comfortable leading through technical depth and building organizations of strong engineers who respect your capability.
You’ve operated infrastructure at scale—dealing with the unique constraints of regulated environments where uptime commitments, audit trails, and data integrity requirements matter as much as technical elegance. You find that context interesting, not frustrating. You care about the craft: clean automation, thoughtful architecture, solid documentation. You understand that in financial services, the details really do matter, and you lead your teams with that same attention to detail.
You move fast, make good decisions with incomplete information, and thrive in a collaborative environment. You read a post-mortem, implement the fix, and then write the runbook. You mentor engineers both on technical depth and professional growth.
Job Qualifications
To be successful in this role, you should bring the following:
Required
•
10+ years of hands-on experience in network engineering, systems administration, infrastructure operations, or DevOps—with at least 5 years in a senior/lead technical role managing infrastructure at enterprise scale.
•
3+ years of people management experience, with demonstrated success building and scaling engineering teams.
•
2+ years in a financial services or FinTech environment; experience with regulated infrastructure is a meaningful advantage.
•
Deep, hands-on network engineering expertise: strong command of BGP, MPLS, OSPF, and other dynamic routing protocols; proven ability to design and operate data center LAN/WAN networks at scale.
•
Production-grade hands-on experience with Cisco data center LAN switching, Arista edge routing, and Palo Alto firewalls; deep familiarity with CLI conventions and vendor-specific configurations.
•
Strong expertise in MPLS design, implementation, and troubleshooting; experience with MPLS-based traffic engineering, Fast Reroute (FRR), or segment routing is expected.
•
Experience with layer 2 technologies (VPLS, multicast, spanning-tree, VXLAN, dark fiber terminations); understanding of next-generation data center network architectures.
•
Hands-on Linux systems administration with RHEL and Debian-based distributions; strong command-line proficiency and systems-level diagnostic ability.
•
Production-grade experience with Kubernetes cluster operations, workload scheduling, resource governance, and service mesh configuration.
•
Proven infrastructure automation experience: Ansible, Terraform, Salt, or equivalent IaC tooling—not just scripting, but designing automation frameworks.
•
CI/CD platform expertise: GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Spinnaker, or equivalent; solid understanding of software delivery pipeline design.
•
Hands-on observability stack experience: Prometheus, Grafana, Elastic Stack (ELK/EFK), CheckMk, or equivalent enterprise monitoring and log aggregation tooling.
•
Strong networking fundamentals: TCP/IP, DNS, TLS/PKI, load balancing, VPN, security architectures—especially as applied to host-based and data center environments.
•
Experience working with Tier 1/Tier 2 global ISPs and configuring BGP routing with external partners and clients.
•
Familiarity with financial data connectivity: FIX protocol, SWIFT messaging, SFTP/FTPS file transfer workflows, market data feed management, and custodian integration patterns.
•
Experience with SOC 2, PCI-DSS, or equivalent compliance frameworks; understanding of audit evidence, access control, and change management.
•
Solid scripting and automation skills in Python, Bash, Perl, or equivalent; comfort with API-driven infrastructure management.
•
Strong communication skills: ability to explain complex technical trade-offs to non-technical stakeholders, lead technical discussions, write clear documentation.
Nice to have
Preferred
•
Experience with hybrid and public cloud platforms (AWS EC2/EKS/RDS/S3); cost governance and FinOps awareness.
•
Familiarity with server virtualization platforms (ProxMox, VMware vSphere, or equivalent).
•
Hands-on experience with extranet providers and services (TNS, MegaPort, ECX).
•
Working knowledge of relational database systems (MySQL, PostgreSQL) and time-series data stores in financial contexts.
•
Java application understanding: JVM internals, tuning, GC analysis (given financial platform prevalence of Java services).
•
Exposure to financial regulatory environments: SEC, FINRA, MiFID II, or similar.
•
Experience with secrets management and certificate lifecycle tooling (HashiCorp Vault, CyberArk, Let’s Encrypt).
•
Leadership certifications or training (Certified Scrum Product Owner, leadership coaching, etc.).
•
Industry certifications: CCNP, CCIE (highly desired), JNCIP-*, JNCIE-*, RHCA, CKA/CKAD, or equivalent.
•
Bachelor of Science (BS) in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field—or equivalent practical experience.
Salary Range
$171,000.00 - $244,150.00
Legal
This is the pay range the Company believes it will pay for this position at the time of this posting. Consistent with applicable law, compensation will be determined based on relevant experience, other job-related qualifications/skills, and geographic location (to account for comparative cost of living). The Company reserves the right to modify this pay range at any time. For this role, benefits include: health/vision/dental insurance, 401(k), PTO, parental leave, and medical leave, STD/LTD insurance benefits. Clearwater Analytics is An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or veteran status, age or any other federally protected class.