Trainee Associate Network Engineer Jobs in Iowa (NOW HIRING)

Why Wellmark: We are a mutual insurance company owned by our policy holders across Iowa and South Dakota, and we've built our reputation on over 80 years' worth of trust. We are not motivated by profits. We are motivated by the well-being of our friends, family, and neighbors-our members. If you're passionate about joining an organization working hard to put its members first, to provide best-in-class service, and one that is committed to sustainability and innovation, consider applying today! 

Why Wellmark Technology? Wellmark is building innovative, modern solutions using cutting edge technology. We are driving organizational transformation and business strategy by empowering our technology team to innovate new and elegant solutions to enhance the customer experience. Together, we are leaning into the future, owning the outcome, and driving organizational change to transform how we work. 

In this formal leadership role, you will lead a high-performing Enterprise Connectivity team responsible for delivering secure, reliable, and scalable connectivity services across the organization's technology landscape. This role focuses on enabling seamless connectivity between users, applications, data centers, cloud environments, and external partners while ensuring operational excellence, service reliability, and network security. 

You will oversee the strategy, operation, optimization, and lifecycle management of enterprise connectivity platforms and services, including network infrastructure, SD-WAN, VXLAN, wireless, cloud platforms, cloud connectivity, and related technologies. The role is accountable for maintaining highly available and resilient connectivity solutions that support business objectives while balancing performance, security, scalability, and cost effectiveness. 

You will partner closely with infrastructure teams, system owners, architects, cybersecurity leaders, vendors, and business stakeholders to evaluate current and future connectivity needs, drive technology modernization initiatives, and ensure connectivity services align with enterprise priorities. A core responsibility of this role is providing leadership and governance for network and connectivity services while enabling operational teams with the tools, processes, and insights needed to maintain service reliability, improve performance, and proactively address business demands. 

This role develops people, fosters a collaborative and inclusive culture, and ensures the team operates effectively within an agile framework. The successful leader will bring a strategic mindset, strong operational discipline, and a customer-focused approach to delivering enterprise connectivity services that support the organization's evolving technology ecosystem. As a key member of the Enterprise Infrastructure leadership team, this leader will help shape and execute a forward-looking connectivity roadmap. 

Preferred: 

• Proven leadership experience in enterprise networking, connectivity services, infrastructure operations, or related technology disciplines 
• Experience managing large-scale enterprise network environments, including WAN, LAN, wireless, internet, data center, and cloud platforms 
• Strong understanding of network architecture, availability, performance management, and operational best practices 
• Experience leading incident response, problem management, and continuous service improvement initiatives 
• Ability to evaluate connectivity platforms and services from operational, business value, risk, and cost perspectives 
• Experience working in regulated industries (e.g., healthcare, finance) 
• Knowledge of network security principles, zero trust architectures, segmentation, and secure access technologies 
• Experience managing vendor relationships, service providers, and technology partners 
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills with experience leveraging operational metrics and reporting to drive decision-making 
• Experience leading technology modernization, automation, and infrastructure transformation efforts 

Preferred, Not Required Applicable Certification Library: 

• Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) 
• Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) 
• Microsoft Certified: Azure Network Engineer Associate 
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate 
• Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Engineer (PCNSE) 
• Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) 
• ITIL Foundation or ITIL Managing Professional 
• CompTIA Network+ 
• CompTIA Security+ 

Required:  

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, information technology, or related field, or direct and applicable work experience.  
• Minimum 7 years of experience in cloud engineering, DevOps, or infrastructure roles.  
• Informal leadership experience typically gained through project management or by coaching/mentoring others by providing guidance and feedback to help an employee to strengthen their knowledge and skills.  
• Experience leading teams in an agile software development environment. Experience with frameworks in the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), supporting Agile Release Trains and aligning designs with Lean-Agile principles.  
• Demonstrated ability to build product roadmaps.   
• Hands on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP services and architecture.   
• Strong understanding of CI/CD infrastructure as code (e.g. Terraform, CloudFormation) and container orchestration (e.g. Kubernetes).   
• Strong collaboration skills with ability to build relationships across technology divisions.  
• Proven experience leading platform/shared service teams, either informally or formally, and delivering enterprise-scale solutions. Ability to think strategically and effectively communicate strategy and direction to a team.  
• Stays informed on emerging technology trends and skillsets. Proven experience implementing change initiatives and supporting a culture of innovation and creativity. Encourages team to accept and resolve challenges.  
• Ability to think strategically to communicate, organize, and implement/accomplish long-range goals.  
• Effective consulting, critical thinking, and problem solving skills. Uses data effectively and demonstrates sound judgment and decision making to drive positive outcomes.  
• Demonstrated success influencing at all levels of the organization. Builds trust, alignment, commitment, and action from others.  
• Prior experience measuring and evaluating work processes to achieve organizational goals.  
• Proven ability to be adaptable to unexpected changes or situations. Adjusts effectively to work within work structures, business processes, work requirements and culture.   
• Travel required up to 5%.  

a. Provide  leadership and day-to-day management of financial and human resources, primarily  focusing on employee coaching, development, performance improvement, coordination and budgeting for staff and team specific services. Support business objectives and produce results that are effective, accurate, and timely and on target to meet HR team and stakeholder needs.  

b. Ensure the team delivers incremental value aligned to cloud strategy, product roadmaps, and stakeholder needs. Collaborate with cross-functional teams to remove impediments and improve delivery velocity.  

c. Translate business objectives into actionable cloud initiatives and resourcing plans.  

d. Oversee delivery of cloud solutions using AWS, Azure or GCP, ensuring alignment with enterprise architecture and security standards.  

e. Partner with architects to review designs and ensure solutions meet performance, cost, and compliance requirements.  

f. Champion automation, infrastructure-as-code, and DevOps practices to improve efficiency and reliability.  

g. Monitor cloud spend, capacity, and performance, proactively addressing risks and cost optimization opportunities.  

h. Serve as a liaison between the cloud engineering teams and senior technology leadership.  

i. Other duties as assigned. 

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

An Equal Opportunity Employer

The policy of Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield is to recruit, hire, train and promote individuals in all job classifications without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, veteran status, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Applicants requiring a reasonable accommodation due to a disability at any stage of the employment application process should contact us at [email protected]

Please inform us if you meet the definition of a "Covered DoD official".

At this time, Wellmark is not considering applicants for this position that require any type of immigration sponsorship (additional work authorization or permanent work authorization) now or in the future to work in the United States. This includes, but IS NOT LIMITED TO: F1-OPT, F1-CPT, H-1B, TN, L-1, J-1, etc. For additional information around work authorization needs please refer to the following resources:Nonimmigrant Workers and Green Card for Employment-Based Immigrants 

Wellmark supports and expects the responsible use of AI for our workforce! We welcome the responsible use of these tools by job seekers as well and are interested in learning from you; you will have an opportunity in the application process to share which tools you used and how you applied them.