Manager Network Engineering Jobs in Illinois (NOW HIRING)

The Manager, Network Engineering and Administration is responsible for the leadership, operational stability, engineering standards, and continuous improvement of the enterprise network environment. This role leads network engineering and network administration activities across Enterprise Network and Operational Technology (OT) Network environments, including LAN, WAN, wireless, internet connectivity, remote access, core services, and related infrastructure components to ensure the network foundation is secure, resilient, scalable, and aligned with business requirements.

The role is accountable for network availability, high availability design, performance optimization, capacity planning, proactive monitoring, incident response, and disciplined change execution according to industry best practices. The Manager establishes operational standards, strengthens monitoring and observability, mitigates risk through strong control discipline, and drives automation and infrastructure as code practices where appropriate to improve consistency, speed, recoverability, and service efficiency across both enterprise and OT network services. This leader partners closely with Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Cloud, Application, Manufacturing, and business teams to ensure network services remain dependable, supportable, and ready to meet current and future enterprise needs.

Network engineering leadership and service ownership

• Lead network engineering and administration function with accountability for enterprise and operational technology (OT) network environments, including LAN, WAN, wireless, internet connectivity, VPN, routing, switching, core network services, and related infrastructure.
• Establish and maintain network engineering standards, operating procedures, support models, escalation paths, lifecycle planning, and documentation to ensure consistent, supportable service delivery across enterprise and OT domains.
• Manage day-to-day network operations and engineering priorities, balancing operational support, project delivery, modernization, and business service expectations across office, data center, remote, and plant-connected environments.

Availability, high availability, and monitoring

• Design, operate, and continuously improve network services for high availability, resiliency, recoverability, and business continuity using redundancy, failover, segmentation, and recovery strategies across enterprise and OT environments.
• Own network monitoring and observability strategy, including health monitoring, fault detection, alerting, event correlation, and service visibility across enterprise, OT, and cloud-connected environments.
• Ensure incidents, outages, degradations, and recurring faults are addressed with urgency through structured response, timely escalation, root cause analysis, and corrective actions to reduce repeat occurrences across enterprise and plant-connected OT environments.

Performance optimization, capacity, and continuous improvement

• Establish measurable standards for network performance, latency, throughput, packet loss, utilization, service availability, and responsiveness, using metrics to guide engineering decisions and service improvements across enterprise and OT services.
• Lead capacity planning, performance trending, technology refresh, and optimization initiatives to maintain stable, scalable networks aligned to business demand, plant operations, and manufacturing connectivity requirements.
• Drive process standardization, automation, and infrastructure as code practices to reduce manual effort, improve change quality, increase repeatability, and accelerate delivery of network services.

Risk mitigation, security alignment, and operational control

• Mitigate operational and technology risk through disciplined configuration management, segmentation, access control coordination, patching, firmware currency, vulnerability remediation, backup and recovery procedures, and documented standards across enterprise and OT environments.
• Partner with cybersecurity, infrastructure, and manufacturing technology teams to align network design and operations to security policies, compliance requirements, enterprise risk management expectations, and stability requirements of OT environments.
• Lead network-related change management, maintenance planning, and implementation governance to reduce risk, improve success rates, and protect production stability.

Strategic planning, vendor management, and team leadership

• Develop network engineering roadmap, including modernization priorities, reliability improvements, lifecycle management, monitoring enhancements, automation opportunities, and readiness for future business and technology requirements across enterprise and OT services.
• Manage vendor relationships, support contracts, circuit providers, hardware and software partners, and service commitments to ensure cost-effective, dependable, and well-supported network services.
• Coach and develop engineers and administrators, establish expectations, drive accountability, and foster culture of operational discipline, technical excellence, collaboration, and continuous improvement.

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or related field; or equivalent combination of education and experience.
• Minimum 8 years of progressive IT infrastructure experience, including significant experience in enterprise network engineering, network administration, and network operations.
• Minimum 5 to 8 years of leadership experience leading engineers, administrators, analysts, and/or technical support teams with accountability for operational performance, service quality, project execution, and team development.
• Relevant certifications are a plus (e.g., CCNA, CCNP, CCIE, Aruba, Palo Alto, Fortinet, AWS/Azure networking, ITIL, automation, cloud, or project/program leadership certifications).
• Demonstrated experience managing Enterprise Network and Operational Technology (OT) Network environments, including routing, switching, wireless, remote connectivity, internet services, monitoring, high availability design, and production support in complex multi-site and plant-connected environments.
• Proven experience improving performance, availability, and operational maturity through monitoring, capacity management, standards, process discipline, vendor coordination, and structured continuous improvement practices.
• Experience with automation, scripting, and infrastructure as code concepts for network provisioning, configuration management, and operational efficiency is strongly preferred.
• Strong leadership of network engineering and administration teams, with the ability to establish expectations, prioritize effectively, manage through change, and maintain accountability for service quality, operational discipline, and technical standards.
• Deep knowledge of Enterprise Network and Operational Technology (OT) Network concepts and technologies, including routing, switching, wireless, VPN, internet connectivity, segmentation, redundancy, failover, core services, and hybrid or cloud-connected environments.
• Strong understanding of network availability, high availability design, resiliency, disaster recovery support, performance engineering, and capacity planning according to industry best practices across enterprise and plant-connected OT environments.
• Proven experience with monitoring and observability platforms, alerting strategy, event analysis, trend reporting, and proactive service health management to improve uptime and reduce operational noise across both enterprise and OT network services.
• Strong working knowledge of incident, problem, change, configuration, and vendor management processes, with the ability to improve operational maturity and reduce service disruption.
• Ability to mitigate operational and security risk through standards, documentation, access coordination, firmware and software currency, vulnerability remediation, backup and recovery discipline, and controlled implementation practices, including sensitivity to the stability and production requirements of OT environments.
• Experience using metrics, dashboards, capacity trends, outage analysis, and service reviews to improve network performance, optimize reliability, and support data-driven decision making.
• Working knowledge of automation, scripting, infrastructure as code, and repeatable configuration management practices to improve change quality, consistency, and engineering efficiency.
• Strong business partnership and communication skills, with the ability to present technical issues, operational risk, performance results, and improvement priorities clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders.