Senior Network Engineer

Location: Primarily Ponteland with flexible working across the Force area, including Home Working

The role

As the Senior Network Engineer, you will be the senior member of a 5-person network support team reporting to the Infrastructure Services Manager. The Network team manages the force's WAN managed service provider alongside the delivery of inhouse support and maintenance services for its LAN/Wi-Fi estate and network security appliances, across 80+ locations throughout the Northumberland and Tyne and Wear areas.

You will bring networking expertise into the team and will work with the Technology Architect to set networking standards and to design networking solutions in support of new product/service development. You will inspire and develop the skills of the network team to deliver outstanding networking services aligned to these standards and service designs.

You'll have a passion to deliver outstanding customer service, have an aptitude for problem-solving and troubleshooting and will embrace an environment of continual change and process improvement.

What will I be doing?

You will bring Network support expertise into the network team and will work with the existing team to further develop their skills and expertise. You will work with the Technology Architect to document the existing environment and to develop new standards and designs to support the delivery of effective networking services in the years ahead.

You will be heavily involved in the technical design discussions with the force's WAN service provider to ensure that an effective networking solution is designed and installed and ensure that the team have the skills and understanding to support this networking environment on a 24×7 basis.

You will assist in the assessment of the current networking services and make recommendations to the Infrastructure Services Manager as to the most appropriate enhancements to the environment in support of effective operational policing and back-office service delivery. You will work with the WAN service provider and the internal support team to deliver and maintain this environment.

You will lead the networking team in the refresh of all networking and security solutions and in the lifecycle management of these solutions to maintain a robust and secure networking service, leading the response to vulnerability issues identified by external or internal monitoring services.

You will inspire the team of network engineers to deliver an outstanding second line support service.

What do I need?

• • Educated to degree level (or equivalent relevant experience).

• • CCNA qualified or with the equivalent relevant experience.

• • Excellent technical understanding of security products

• • Excellent knowledge of how to install, configure and maintain, switch and routing technologies (preferably Cisco)

• • Experience of installing, configuring and maintaining, wireless technology (ideally Meraki)

• • Experience of installation, configuration and maintenance of VPN technology

• • Experience of configuration and use of network management and monitoring tools such as (SolarWinds, Cisco Prime,)

• • Significant experience in the management of suppliers to achieve contracted service levels.

• • Demonstrable strategic thinking and action planning experience.

• • Demonstrable experience of managing a 2nd/3rd line network (WAN/LAN/WiFi) support and configuration service

• • Logical approach to troubleshooting and use of appropriate troubleshooting tools (packet captures)

• • People Management and Development skills in terms of Line Management

What can you expect from us in return for your dedication?

· Fantastic public pension scheme

· Childcare Vouchers

· Excellent discounts on all things from shopping to eating out thanks to the BlueLight Discount Card

· Huge focus on wellbeing, trained mental health first aiders on site, EAP service

· Access to gyms

Amongst other benefits

Vetting: Management vetting (MV)

You must have been resident in the UK for a period of 5 years prior to your application to be eligible. A job offer will be dependent upon vetting clearance, and references.

For full details please see our Careers site