IT Network Manager

Washington, District of Columbia, United States

A thriving, mission-driven multimedia organization, NPR produces award-winning news, information, and music programming in partnership with hundreds of independent public radio stations across the nation. The NPR audience values information, creativity, curiosity, and social responsibility – and our employees do too. We are innovators and leaders in diverse fields, from journalism and digital media to IT and development. Every day, our employees and member stations touch the lives of millions worldwide.

Across our organization, we’re building a workplace where collaboration is essential, diverse voices are heard, and inclusion is the key to our success. We are committed to doing the right thing in our journalism and in every role s means that integrity, adherence to our ethical standards, and compliance with legal obligations are fundamental responsibilities for every employee at NPR.

As our IT Network Manager, you will lead a dedicated team of network and voice engineers while bridging the gap between traditional enterprise networking and cutting-edge broadcast technology. We are looking for a people‑first, Cisco‑certified leader to guide, mentor, and empower an engineering team overseeing the lifecycle of our network infrastructure. Beyond technical mastery, you will cultivate a high‑performing team culture centered on collaboration, continuous growth, high availability, and proactive security.

If you thrive in inspiring technical talent within an 'always‑on' environment and have a passion for seamless media delivery, this is your next challenge.

• Team Leadership & Talent Development: Build, lead, and mentor a high‑performing team of network and voice engineers; establish clear goals, manage team performance, drive professional development, and champion a collaborative, supportive engineering culture.
• Enterprise Architecture & Infrastructure Management: Oversee the design, implementation, and optimization of enterprise network, wireless, and Storage Area Networking (SAN) infrastructure across Cisco ACI, Catalyst/Nexus, Firepower (FTD), SD‑WAN, and Meraki platforms.
• Broadcast Network Alignment: Partner with broadcast engineering teams to guide your team in maintaining a high‑availability IP broadcast network that carries low‑latency, real‑time audio and video traffic for NPR’s daily content production and live transmission.
• Operational Excellence & Incident Leadership: Lead network operations, incident management, and root‑cause analysis for complex issues; coach team members through high‑pressure troubleshooting using monitoring tools like Solar Winds, Cisco Nexus Dashboard, and Thousand Eyes.
• Documentation & Standards: Develop and maintain network architecture documentation, standard operating procedures, and routing protocols (BGP, EIGRP), ensuring network reliability, scalability, security, and team operational best practices.
• Cross‑Functional Collaboration & Executive Stakeholder Communication: Collaborate with Security, Dev Ops, Systems, and Enterprise Application teams, while effectively communicating network performance, risk analyses, incident reports, and strategic initiatives to senior leadership.

The above duties and responsibilities are not an exhaustive list of required responsibilities, duties and skills. Other duties may be assigned, and this job description can be modified at any time.

• 8+ years of experience in enterprise networking.
• 3+ years directly managing and developing technical teams in a network leadership or manager role.
• Proven track record of talent development, performance management, team building, and leading engineering teams through major operational projects.
• Strong…