Master Network Architect - Manufacturing

Location(s):
On‑site Smyrna Tennessee

Job Schedule:

Full-time / Mon-Thurs on site required

Degree Level: University Degree

Sponsorship:
No

Drive Manufacturing Connectivity and Innovation. Come Drive Innovation with Us. We are currently looking for a Master Network Architect (Operational Technology) to join our team at our Smyrna, TN location. In this role, you will serve as the enterprise technical authority for manufacturing network architecture across Nissan Americas, helping shape the vision, strategy, and standards that enable secure, resilient, and scalable connectivity throughout our manufacturing operations.

You will partner with manufacturing, engineering, infrastructure, and cybersecurity teams to design and evolve network solutions supporting industrial automation, Operational Technology (OT), and digital manufacturing initiatives. This role will drive the adoption of modern network architectures, cloud connectivity, and IT/OT convergence strategies while ensuring operational continuity, production uptime, and cybersecurity across mission‑critical manufacturing environments. As a senior technical leader, you will provide architectural guidance, establish technology roadmaps and standards, evaluate emerging technologies, and help enable the next generation of connected manufacturing capabilities across Nissan's regional operations.

• Develop and govern OT network architectures supporting manufacturing technologies, including PLCs, DCS, SCADA, MES, historians, and Industrial IoT environments.
• Design secure, highly available, and low‑latency network solutions while establishing IT/OT segmentation, zoning, and boundary protection strategies that safeguard production environments.
• Own and drive the long‑term network architecture strategy and roadmap across manufacturing plants, data centers, cloud environments, and OT ecosystems.
• Design end‑to‑end network solutions spanning LAN, WAN, WLAN, data center, cloud, OT infrastructure, wired and wireless technologies, and communication networks.
• Establish and maintain architectural standards, reference architectures, design patterns, and best practices to support consistency, scalability, and operational excellence.
• Lead architecture reviews and governance activities to ensure network solutions align with enterprise architecture, cybersecurity requirements, regulatory obligations, and operational standards.
• Partner closely with cybersecurity teams to implement Zero Trust‑aligned network architectures, proactively identifying and addressing security risks, technical debt, resiliency gaps, and vulnerabilities.
• Define and implement network segmentation, access control, and protection strategies that secure manufacturing environments without impacting plant availability or production operations.
• Lead network architecture efforts supporting cloud, hybrid cloud, and multi‑cloud environments, including manufacturing connectivity, vendor access, remote access, and plant‑to‑cloud data flows.
• Evaluate and guide the adoption of emerging technologies such as SD‑WAN, SASE, network automation, and observability solutions to improve scalability, resiliency, and security across manufacturing operations.
• Design highly available and disaster‑resilient network architectures that support 24x7 manufacturing operations, including monitoring, alerting, backup, recovery, and operational support capabilities.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex network and production‑related challenges, providing architectural leadership and guidance on high‑impact initiatives.
• Mentor engineers and architects while providing technical direction to vendors, system integrators, and cross‑functional teams supporting mission‑critical manufacturing environments.

• Required Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field.
• 15+ years of overall IS/IT experience.
• 10+ years of experience in enterprise network engineering and network architecture roles.
• 10+ years of experience with Cisco networking technologies, including routing, switching, wireless networking, and network…