Lead Principal, Enterprise Network Architect

Summary

The Lead Principal Enterprise Network Architect serves as the enterprise authority for network architecture strategy, standards, governance, and modernization. The role is responsible for defining reference architectures, consolidating and governing technical standards, translating business and security requirements into architecture deliverables, evaluating emerging technologies, and ensuring that network architectures support business objectives, security requirements, automation initiatives, cloud adoption, and infrastructure platform engineering principles.

Success is measured through architecture quality, standards adoption, technology governance effectiveness, reusable reference architectures, reduced architectural risk, and alignment between business outcomes and network capabilities.

• Define and maintain enterprise network architecture strategy, standards, reference architectures, and target-state roadmaps.
• Develop modular network architecture patterns supporting campus, WAN, cloud, hybrid, data center, SASE, and Zero Trust initiatives.
• Establish architecture guardrails supporting scalability, automation, resiliency, observability, and security.
• Review and approve network design submissions from MSPs, vendors, integrators, and internal teams
• Participate in enterprise architecture governance reviews and evaluate infrastructure dependencies, risks, and integration requirements.
• Validate alignment with enterprise standards, security controls, operational requirements, and architectural principles.
• Translate business and technical requirements into Architecture Requirements Documents (ARDs), architecture decisions, and solution designs.
• Extract, normalize, and consolidate network standards, SOPs, architectures, and operational knowledge from distributed repositories.
• Establish and maintain a centralized network standards and policy knowledge base
• Produce architecture documentation, design standards, and implementation guidance.
• Evaluate emerging network technologies, infrastructure platforms, automation capabilities, AI-assisted operations, and cloud networking solutions.
• Support enterprise modernization programs involving SD-WAN, SASE, Zero Trust, cloud networking, network automation, infrastructure-as-code, observability, and segmentation.
• Communicate architecture decisions, trade-offs, standards, risks, and recommendations to executives, architects, engineers, security teams, and business leaders.
• Mentor architects and engineering teams on architecture principles, design practices, and technology strategy.

• 10+ years of enterprise networking, infrastructure engineering, or network architecture experience.
• 5+ years in senior, lead, or principal enterprise architecture roles.
• Demonstrated experience defining enterprise network architecture standards, reference architectures, and governance processes.
• Experience conducting architecture reviews and approving network designs.
• Experience translating business and security requirements into architecture deliverables and requirements documentation.

• TCP/IP fundamentals
• Routing and switching
• VPN technologies
• Network security architecture
• SD-WAN and SASE concepts
• Cloud networking concepts
• Data center networking concepts
• Network segmentation and Zero Trust principles
• Experience creating and maintaining enterprise architecture documentation and standards.
• Strong cross-functional communication and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Experience working with MSPs, vendors, and external implementation partners.

• Experience with Fortinet and Cisco (including Meraki) network solutions
• Experience with network automation and programmability (Ansible, Terraform, APIs, IaC, Net Dev Ops ).
• Experience with network observability and AIOps platforms.
• Experience with large-scale enterprise modernization programs.
• Experience with cloud networking across Google Cloud, Azure, and AWS
• Experience with OT, industrial, and IoT networking
• Experience with infrastructure platform engineering concepts.
• Knowledge of AI-assisted network operations and Agentic Net Ops concepts.
• Familiarity with DDI platforms, network source-of-truth tooling, or digital twin technologies.
• Knowledge of enterprise architecture frameworks such as TOGAF.
• Familiarity with ITIL-based operational models.
• Relevant networking certifications (CCNP, CCIE, JNCIP, cloud networking certifications). Certification preference derived from market patterns and Gartner skill references but not required by hiring manager. .pdf)