Highline Hiring for Vice President of Network Operations Job at Remote Full Time

Highline is seeking a Vice President of Network Operations to national network operations. In this role one of the primary responsibilities will be establishing a NOC from the ground up. This includes building a staff that will help groom all network management and element management systems for action oriented event management. You will help identify all NMS, EMS, Splunk, automation tools, ticketing systems, to be integrated into network operations. You will provide technical oversight and industry insight for a FTTH ISP focused on rural broadband expansion. Highline is a rapid growth ISP that aspires toward 500,000 lit subscribers in the next 6-7 years.

Highline’s primary growth engine is through greenfield expansion of a predominately FTTH access architecture. This is a unique opportunity to influence from the beginning stages in a fast-growing service provider network. The ideal candidate will have experience in both Network engineering/operations and NOC Operations. The VP of Network Operations role will help lead a team to establish lab and under environments to evaluate, benchmark, and test solutions that can be applied to the network operations at scale. The role will require industry level insight and knowledge in Service Provider Internetworking, fiber access, OSP architectures, and leading technical professionals. See our website at www.highlinefast.com

Job Summary:

The VP of Network Operations is responsible for leading a team of engineers that act as tier 3 network engineering and a tier 1 NOC operations. The leader will be responsible for building a NOC team and function from the ground up. This leader will identify and hire staff in support of NOC operations and Network Management Systems administration to tool and outfit the NOC. This leader will help mature change management and incident management procedures as it aligns with NOC. This leader will maintain real operational execution responsibilities and KPIs measuring network availability with a goal of 99.95% service availability. This will largely be delivered by our ability to detect issues proactively and respond with the right information and taking the right actions through automation or clarify of RACI. Given this is ground up establishment of a NOC operation establishing accountabilities, roles, and processes will be a major part of delivery for the VP of Network Operations.

Duties/Responsibilities:

• Development of network engineers to next level leaders.
• Build well-structured content and knowledge management for NOC. Including management of all circuit/carrier information, all vendor TAC and escalation contacts, etc.
• Where possible, establish ticket bonding between vendor systems and Highline systems.
• Identify key roles and develop an organization in support of National Network Operations. This will start with a team of 6-8 engineers in 2022. And grow to a 24×7 NOC operation in 2023+.
• Evaluate and oversee guidance for NMS, EMS solutions and development for NOC Operations. Create alarming and event engineering that produces enriched alarms with action-oriented outcomes.
• Use network operations insight to design NMS, EMS that can rapidly detect, mitigate conditions
• Build and utilize intelligent and modern system analytics to help proactively detect network events.
• Build and utilize automated workflows and closed loop network automation for modern network operations.
• Evaluate network assets of small city and rural telco and cable MSOs for potential acquisition to Highline Services. Assess value of facilities, network assets, and competitive positioning.
• Evaluate mid-mile and backbone transport wave, dark-fiber, leased IRU solutions for the most effective long-term strategy.
• Find and suggest new ways to automate the management of device and network configurations, with a constant eye on decreasing operational issues and general maintenance times.
• Oversee and propose lab testing facility and environment to perform and support UAT, E2E and A/B tests in staging and production.
• Pursue a customer first mentality and deliver simple, easy to use solutions for our internal engineering users.
• Establish deployment package standards for the infrastructure projects in access, regional and backbone networks.
• Navigate 3rd party transport IRU for Dark, Leased options, wavelength, etc. Identify low cost and reliable partner engagements that enable our business from a mid-mile and backbone network connectivity.
• Develop Network Capacity planning models, standards for measurement, reporting, and 18-36m capacity forecasting that will help inform partnerships as well.
• Ensure Tier 3 Engineering has methodical and peer reviewed documented MOPs for change management procedures.
• Business travel required as necessary.
• Other duties as assigned.

Competencies:

• Exceptional interpersonal, verbal, and written communication skills. Possess the ability to encapsulate high complexity technical decisions and tell a multidimensional story with a business outcome, present ideas to cross-functional teams, present demos, and concepts to senior leadership, and explain operational issue background and root cause to vendors and C-level/Board leadership.
• Ability to abstract undefined problems and operational issues. Ability to articulate complex issues or designs tailored to the skillset of the audience.
• Ability to influence, in telecommunication/industry standards, bodies and vendor communities for feature and solution development pertinent to our network.
• 10+ years’ experience working in a Service Provider network architecture/design or operations.
• A strong business acumen that will help shape near and long-term network architectures and investments.
• Demonstrated ability to lead and develop talent into next level leaders.
• Ability to incorporate network evolution trends and technology advancements into practical service provider products and business operation plans.
• Possess the ability to adapt new industry trends in telecommunications and network management while balancing network operations stability. Ability to not only lead but influence the team in network operations to execute.
• Strong practical experience in network operations and network management. Experience in telecommunications at carrier class scale with experience with optical network infrastructure, transmission systems, layer2/3 routers, and data services. Networking experience in key protocols: MPLS, BGP, ISIS, and SDN concepts.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer
• Some US-based travel required. 5-10 trips annually
• Must be able to lift up to 50 pounds at times
• Must be able to pass pre-employment background check and drug screen (and Random Selections)

Job Type: Full-time

Benefits:

• 401(k)
• 401(k) matching
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Health insurance
• Health savings account
• Life insurance
• Paid time off
• Professional development assistance
• Tuition reimbursement
• Vision insurance

Schedule:

• Monday to Friday

Education:

• Bachelor’s (Preferred)

Experience:

• Service Provider Network Operations: 10 years (Preferred)
• Telecommunication: 1 year (Preferred)

Work Location: Remote