Contract Python Network Automation Jobs in Chicago, IL

***We are unable to sponsor for this permanent full-time role***

***Position is bonus eligible***

Prestigious Financial Institution is currently seeking a Senior Network Engineering Manager with strong Cisco and Multicast experience. Candidate will be a senior technical leader responsible for leading a high-performing network engineering team that designs, builds, and operates the low-latency infrastructure supporting financial exchange platforms. This role sits at the intersection of hands-on technical depth and strategic execution, ensuring the network consistently meets the performance, reliability, and determinism required for global markets. The Sr. Manager serves as a technical authority, mentor, and decision-maker setting direction, establishing best practices, and driving execution across both strategic projects and day-to-day operations. Strong communication skills are critical, including the ability to clearly articulate technical risks, trade-offs, and priorities to senior leadership while maintaining alignment across engineering teams.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing network engineering team, fostering technical excellence, strong accountability, and disciplined engineering practices across a global, multi-region environment
• Drive strategic network initiatives from concept through execution, including pre-implementation research, design validation, vendor evaluation, and production deployment, ensuring high-quality delivery and strong execution discipline
• Own the architecture and long-term evolution of low-latency trading network infrastructure, guiding design decisions around topology, routing, performance optimization, and scalability in environments where latency and determinism are critical
• Partner closely with senior technical contributors, including Principal Engineers, to lead complex design efforts, validate architectural decisions, and raise the overall technical bar of the organization
• Manage a dynamic project portfolio, continuously reprioritizing work based on business needs, market events, and operational risk while maintaining alignment to key strategic initiatives
• Collaborate across infrastructure, security, cloud, and application teams to deliver integrated solutions, ensuring reliable, secure, and high-performance connectivity across all environments
• Establish and enforce strong operational practices, including structured change management, validation procedures, incident response expectations, and post-implementation review processes
• Support and influence network automation strategy, encouraging scalable, maintainable approaches using Python and API-driven tooling to improve efficiency and reduce operational friction
• Oversee vendor relationships and hardware/software evaluation efforts, including participation in RFPs, proof-of-concept testing, and critical design reviews, ensuring informed technology decisions
• Serve as a senior escalation point for complex network issues, leading high-impact troubleshooting efforts and ensuring timely resolution across engineering and operations teams
• Contribute to budgeting and capacity planning for network infrastructure, aligning investments with performance requirements and business growth
• Define and maintain engineering standards, architecture documentation, and technical processes, including contributions to regulatory-facing documentation where required
• Operate effectively in a fast-paced, evolving environment, balancing long-term architectural direction with immediate operational priorities and driving a strong make it happen execution mindset

Qualifications:

• 10+ years of progressive network engineering experience in low-latency, mission-critical environments, with at least 3 years in a leadership or management capacity
• Deep expertise in low-latency network design and optimization, with a strong understanding of switching behavior, buffering, and techniques required to achieve deterministic performance at scale
• Advanced knowledge of Layer 2 and Layer 3 protocols, including BGP, OSPF, MPLS, VXLAN, multicast (PIM-SM), and resilient traffic engineering across global networks
• Proven ability to design, scale, and operate complex, highly available network infrastructure in environments where performance and reliability are critical to the business
• Strong track record of leading and developing engineering teams, including mentoring senior engineers, driving technical standards, and building a high-performance, accountable culture
• Experience leading large, complex projects from research and design through implementation, with disciplined execution and strong operational rigor
• Hands-on experience with network automation using Python and API-driven approaches to improve efficiency, consistency, and scalability
• Solid understanding of network security principles, including segmentation, access control, and secure design practices within enterprise and trading network environments
• Experience managing competing priorities in a fast-paced, dynamic environment, with the ability to align engineering work to business needs and drive execution under pressure
• Strong communication and leadership presence, with the ability to clearly articulate technical strategy, risks, and trade-offs to both engineering teams and senior leadership
• Experience working with distributed teams and partnering across infrastructure, security, and application organizations
• Familiarity with contributing to architecture standards, technical documentation, and, where applicable, materials supporting regulatory or audit requirements

Preferred certifications:

• Cisco CCIE (Routing & Switching or Data Center) or equivalent expert-level experience
• Arista, Juniper, or other advanced networking certifications