WAN Engineer

Position Title: Wide Area Network (WAN) Engineer
Department: Telecommunications / Network Infrastructure
Position Type: Full-Time
Location:
Primary location Remote/Open to local candidates near Suitland, MD

We are seeking an experienced WAN Engineer to support the design, implementation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of enterprise-wide network infrastructure within a federal government environment.

The WAN Engineer will be responsible for ensuring the availability, reliability, security, and performance of critical network services connecting geographically dispersed facilities, data centers, cloud environments, and remote users.

The ideal candidate will possess strong technical expertise in Cisco networking technologies, WAN connectivity, routing and switching protocols, network monitoring, and incident resolution. This position requires collaboration with Network Operations Center (NOC) personnel, Network Security Engineers, telecommunications vendors, and federal stakeholders to maintain operational readiness and support mission-critical services.

• Configure, maintain, troubleshoot, and optimize enterprise WAN infrastructure, including routers, switches, and telecommunications circuits.
• Support connectivity between headquarters, regional facilities, data centers, cloud environments, and remote locations.
• Monitor network performance, availability, bandwidth utilization, latency, and packet loss to proactively identify service degradation.
• Maintain and troubleshoot WAN technologies, including MPLS, Ethernet circuits, VPNs, SD-WAN, and dedicated point-to-point connections.
• Support Cisco network infrastructure, including IOS and IOS-XE platforms.
• Implement network configuration changes, firmware upgrades, hardware replacements, and infrastructure improvements.
• Support network redundancy, high availability, failover, and disaster recovery capabilities.
• Serve as a technical escalation resource for complex WAN-related incidents and service disruptions.
• Diagnose and resolve routing, switching, circuit connectivity, and network performance issues.
• Coordinate troubleshooting efforts with telecommunications carriers, equipment manufacturers, and internal technical teams.
• Participate in incident bridges, outage investigations, and service restoration activities.
• Perform root cause analysis (RCA) and contribute to After Action Reports (AARs).
• Validate network functionality following planned maintenance, emergency changes, and service restoration.
• Provide technical updates to management and stakeholders during significant incidents.

• Develop and execute network changes in accordance with established Change Advisory Board (CAB) and Change Control Board (CCB) processes.
• Prepare change implementation plans, impact assessments, validation procedures, and rollback documentation.
• Participate in scheduled maintenance windows, including after-hours and weekend activities as required.
• Support vulnerability remediation, network hardening, and compliance activities in accordance with federal security requirements.
• Ensure network configurations adhere to organizational security policies and approved technical standards.

• Utilize enterprise monitoring and diagnostic tools such as Solar Winds, Datadog, Extra Hop, and other network management platforms.
• Maintain accurate network topology diagrams, circuit inventories, device configurations, and infrastructure documentation.
• Document network incidents, troubleshooting activities, and resolutions within Service Now or equivalent IT service management platforms.
• Assist with capacity planning, network lifecycle management, and infrastructure modernization initiatives.
• Identify end-of-life and end-of-support network equipment and recommend replacement or remediation strategies.

• Work closely with NOC personnel, Network Security, Systems Engineering, Cloud Engineering, and other technical teams.
• Coordinate with telecommunications providers, including Verizon, Zayo, and other carriers, to resolve circuit-related issues.
• Provide technical recommendations to improve network resiliency, operational efficiency, and service delivery.
• Support infrastructure migrations, data center transitions, and enterprise network modernization projects.
• Participate in technical reviews, operational meetings, and project…