Network Operations Engineer Jobs in California

Network Operations Engineer

Role Overview

The Senior Network Operations Engineer is a hands-on, individual-contributor role responsible for the day-to-day monitoring, troubleshooting, and remediation of a global enterprise network supporting a leading autonomous-mobility client’s IT operations organization. This is an engineering role, not a management role: the majority of your time is spent inside monitoring tools and CLI sessions — chasing down alerts, isolating root cause, and restoring service.

You will work as a full-time embedded contractor supporting the account, reporting to the client’s Operations Manager. You are the technical engine behind the NOC: triaging alerts in Data Dog and other monitoring platforms, working ServiceNow tickets end-to-end, and directly troubleshooting the broader multi-vendor network stack. You help bring newly deployed sites through hypercare, keep major incidents moving toward resolution, and continuously sharpen the runbooks and monitoring you rely on.

Success in this role is measured by how quickly and reliably you detect, diagnose, and resolve network issues.

Key Responsibilities

Monitoring & Proactive Troubleshooting

• Alert triage: Monitor Data Dog dashboards and other network monitoring tools continuously; investigate alerts as they fire and determine root cause before they become incidents.

• Proactive health checks: Regularly review network health, performance graphs, and capacity trends; catch and resolve degradations before they impact users.

• Dashboard & alert tuning: Build and refine Data Dog dashboards, alerts, and monitors to improve signal quality and cut down on noise.

Incident Response & Break-Fix

• Hands-on troubleshooting: Diagnose and resolve NOC problems directly — from firewall policy issues to wireless connectivity failures to circuit outages — using CLI, vendor controllers, and monitoring data.

• Ticket ownership: Work incidents and requests end-to-end in ServiceNow, from initial triage through resolution and closure, keeping tickets updated with clear technical notes.

• Major incident participation: Join the technical bridge on P1/P0 disruptions, execute diagnostic and remediation steps, and help drive the issue to resolution.

• Escalation: Recognize when to escalate to vendors, carriers, or senior engineers, and manage that communication until the issue is resolved.

Network Platform Support

• Palo Alto Networks: Troubleshoot, and maintain visibility on Palo Alto Networks firewalls with Strata — policy changes, VPN issues, routing, and security-rule troubleshooting.

• Ruckus R1 wireless: Support and troubleshoot the Ruckus R1 wireless environment, including AP connectivity, RF issues, and controller configuration.

• Multi-vendor troubleshooting: Work hands-on across switches, routers, firewalls, and wireless controllers from multiple vendors to isolate and fix problems at the CLI or via cloud-managed controllers.

Critical Facilities & High-Bandwidth Operations

• High-bandwidth pipelines: Troubleshoot and maintain high-performance pipelines supporting massive data ingress/egress (such as local vehicle/fleet data offloading), resolving bottlenecks as they arise.

• Critical environments: Provide hands-on network support in critical facilities (e.g., automated data centers, localized data-ingress hubs, and fleet maintenance facilities), accounting for the power, cooling, and structured-cabling constraints that affect network operations there.

Deployment Support, Change Execution & Documentation

• Hypercare execution: Actively monitor and stabilize newly deployed infrastructure during hypercare and site/network acceptance phase, resolving anomalies as they surface.

• MOP execution: Execute Methods of Procedure (MOPs) for installing, staging, and upgrading firewalls, core switches, wireless access points, and UPS systems, following change windows precisely.

• Change tickets: Submit and execute changes through ServiceNow change management, documenting steps taken and results.

• Runbook contribution: Use and continuously improve the team’s runbooks, configuration baselines, and troubleshooting playbooks based on what you learn solving real problems.

Qualifications & Experience

Required

• Experience: 4+ years of hands-on network engineering or NOC engineering experience in a high-availability enterprise environment.

• Technical depth: Strong hands-on experience configuring and troubleshooting multi-vendor network devices via CLI and cloud-managed controllers, including Palo Alto Networks firewalls and Ruckus wireless (R1 preferred).

• Monitoring tools: Working proficiency with Data Dog or a comparable network/infrastructure monitoring and alerting platform — building dashboards, tuning alerts, and using telemetry to drive troubleshooting.

• ITSM tools: Practical experience working tickets, changes, and problems in ServiceNow or a comparable ITSM platform.

• Troubleshooting mindset: Demonstrated ability to independently diagnose and resolve complex network issues under time pressure.

• Communication: Clear written communication for ticket notes, incident updates, and shift handoffs.

Preferred

• Automation: Familiarity with scripting or automation (e.g., Python, Ansible) to speed up troubleshooting and reduce repetitive work.

• Advanced routing & protocols: Working knowledge of BGP peering, OSPF, EVPN-VXLAN, and stateful firewall policy.

• Domain experience: Experience operating in data center, fleet, mission-critical, or autonomous / high-technology environments.

• Managed-services / contractor context: Experience delivering operations as an embedded contractor or through an MSP relationship.

• Education & certifications: B.S. in Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or equivalent practical experience. Certifications such as PCNSA/PCNSE, CCNA/CCNP, CWNA, or ITIL Foundation are a strong plus.

Compensation Range: $140K - $180K