Senior Network Engineer Consultant

IWU is seeking a Senior Network Engineer Consultant (Independent Contractor ‑ 1099 / Contract-to-Hire) for a large-scale technology reorganization project.

• IWU is standing up a dual-site, active/active, and on-premises data center footprint to support enterprise re-platforming and an AI-first technology stack. The network fabric is the connective tissue for everything we run – campus and colocation connectivity, leaf/spine data center switching, inter-site links, GPU/RoCE traffic, and the security perimeter that protects it all. We are seeking a Network Engineer – a principal-level individual contributor – with deep Cisco routing/switching and Palo Alto Networks firewall expertise to design, build, and operate that fabric.
• This is not a cloud-network role
  . IWU runs production network infrastructure we own and operate in commercial colocation and across our campus estate. You will own complex network designs, implement them in production, mentor engineers through your work, and keep the network observable, secure, and available on an enterprise scale.
• You will be a hands-on principal
  : you will translate industry network standards into deployed configurations, partner with infrastructure, security, AI, telecom, and application teams, and hold the bar for design quality, operational discipline, and incident response.

• Contribute to the enterprise network reference architecture – campus, WAN/SD‑WAN, data center leaf/spine, inter‑site active/active connectivity, and out‑of‑band management – aligned to dual‑site colocation standards.
• Design Cisco‑centric L2/L3 fabrics – Nexus data center switching, Catalyst campus switching, ASR/ISR routing, EVPN/VXLAN or traditional multi‑tier designs, BGP route reflectors, and redundant default‑gateway strategies.
• Design inter‑site and carrier connectivity – BGP with ISPs and colocation cross‑connects, path selection, bandwidth capacity planning, and latency budgets for synchronous replication and AI workloads.
• Document approved design patterns
  , IP addressing plans, and naming standards for the network team and adjacent engineering groups.

• Architect and operate Palo Alto Networks next‑generation firewalls for data center, campus, and inter‑site security zones.
• Build and maintain security policy – application‑based rules, zone segmentation, NAT, SSL/TLS decryption where approved, threat prevention, URL filtering, and Wild Fire integration.
• Implement zero‑trust network access patterns in partnership with Identity and Security – user‑, device‑, Global Protect remote access, and integration with Entra  / Active Directory.
• Lead firewall change management – rule lifecycle, recertification, hit‑count review, and audit‑ready documentation.

• Operate leaf/spine data center fabrics supporting bare‑metal, VMware, Kubernetes, and GPU/accelerator clusters – including RoCE or high‑speed Ethernet designs for AI training and inference traffic where standards require.
• Configure network services – DHCP/DNS integration, NTP, SNMP/streaming telemetry, Net Flow/IPFIX, and automation hooks for monitoring platforms.
• Partner with the Enterprise AI Architect and infrastructure teams on network requirements for AI platform nodes – bandwidth, lossless Ethernet where needed, ECN/PFC tuning, and traffic isolation.

• Implement high availability and DR for network services – redundant supervisors, MLAG/vPC, HSRP/VRRP, graceful restart, BFD, and tested failover runbooks across dual sites.
• Automate network operations where practical – Python, Ansible, Terraform, Cisco NSO, or Palo Alto API/XML/REST – for config generation, compliance checks, and repeatable deployments.
• Maintain lifecycle management – IOS/XE/NX‑OS and PAN‑OS patching cadence, hardware refresh, end‑of‑life planning, and sparing strategy.

• Partner with Information Security on segmentation, DDoS mitigation, and compliance controls – FERPA, HIPAA, PCI‑DSS, and SOC 2 evidence as applicable.
• Support ITIL‑aligned change
  , incident, and problem management –…