We are looking for a Network Architect who is passionate about setting strategic architectural direction, creating architecture, and then being the technical lead on teams who are engineering those architectural designs for network and security infrastructure. The ideal candidate will thrive on close collaboration with cross-functional teams and critical challenges.

The right candidate will demonstrate an innovative and informed perspective, develop pragmatic yet flexible solutions and move forward in the face of ambiguity to support requirements to advance National IT strategic directions from a network and security infrastructure perspective. As Network Architect you will be representing the Network Product Line when working with peers throughout the Federal Reserve System and helping to guide solutions toward supportable enterprise standards.

You will work closely with architects around Federal Reserve System, business / product owners, and various levels of technical business partners to provide guidance and expertise to facilitate customer integration with Network Product Line enterprise standards / patterns. The candidate should be willing to build good working relationships within the team and across the Federal Reserve System.

You will, have good knowledge of software defined networking, network automation, DevOps patterns, and mature CICD processes that will help build the next generation of services that enable self-healing for our systems and minimize the work required to deploy and validate the network.

You will work in an agile environment as a hands-on technical lead responsible for all phases of the project development cycle.

What You Will Do:

• Develop architecture and roadmaps based on business requirements and/or network/security infrastructure technology enhancements geared toward improving customer experience and utilizing standards/solutions that meet best practices for an enterprise environment.

• Provide expert level engineering and operational practices for a network and security infrastructure service provider.

• Partner with internal customers to provide guidance on architectural patterns ensuring that both Network Product Line and National IT’s security, standards, and support requirements are met. Recommends and implements changes to business information and technical architecture requirements.

• Partners with our clients and other resources in detecting critical architectural and infrastructure gaps or deficiencies in the IT environment. Recommends solutions for improvement.

• Provide input and directional guidance for network and security infrastructure automation.

• Work with peer architects to create integration patterns that inform and set standards for various traffic patterns in a hybrid enterprise environment.

• Oversees and directs major, critical, and emerging technology studies. Assess merit and impact; designs, develops, and establishes architecture standards.

• Understand inherited risks related to network and security infrastructure environment that encompasses colocation data centers, multiple CSPs, SaaS and on-premise sites that are interdependent on each other.

• Support Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) efforts to ensure adherence to CI/CD principles.

• Maintain working relationships with peers and business partners and communicate with key executives and stakeholders on successes, opportunities, and challenges.

• Initiates and oversees project development, system/design/testing, requirement direction and investigation of alternatives for implementation of feasible new technology.

• Provides key consultative leadership on System projects focused on planning, development and implementation of strategic technological directives.

• Provides strategic foresight and long-term development planning for future technology impacting the Federal Reserve System.

• Work with a team of highly motivated and skilled professionals to solve business critical challenges.

• Embrace the System IT Principles, to guide daily decisions and strategic decision-making processes.

• Occasional travel may be required including overnight stays.

• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s degree in applicable discipline or the equivalent is required.

• 10+ years of technical area experience in a complex enterprise IT environment, for large-scale systems across multiple hardware and software platforms.

• At least 7+ years of experience in network and security infrastructure technology engineering (e.g., routing and switching, firewall).

• DevOps / Automation: TerraForm, Ansible, Python

• In-depth knowledge of the following:

• Network Routing protocols: BGP, OSPF, EIGRP.

• Network WAN technologies MPLS over mGRE, DMVPN, IPSEC VPN, WAN MACSec, SD-WAN.

• Juniper and Palo Alto Firewalls.

• Cisco Nexus Hardware (ACI & Nexus Mode), Cisco Catalyst Catalyst 8500, 9k Series, ASR and ISR series

• Next Generation LAN technologies – Fabric Networking using VXLAN and EVPN

• Wireless

• Expert at network fundamentals including the OSI model, TCP/IP, IPv4 and IPv6,

• Must be comfortable with Linux commands/file system

• Strong technical knowledge of IT enterprise systems and tools

• Experience with IDS/IPS, network access control, load balancers preferred

• Experience learning, sharing, and implementing best practices with the ability to determine operational processes Progressive leadership experience with responsibility for leading technical staff and matrixed teams within large mission-critical systems with complex network requirements, or the equivalent required

• Experience implementing network and security infrastructure for large critical enterprise environment that is a target of Nation- State attackers.

• Deep understanding of network and security infrastructure capabilities and gaps.

• Understanding of NIST and FedRAMP security requirements.

​Discover the Reason Why So Many People Love It Here!

When you join the Richmond Fed, not only will you find a challenging and purposeful career, you’ll also have access to a wide range of benefits and perks that support your health and wealth, including:

• Great medical benefits

• Pension and 401(k) with employer match

• Paid time off

• Tuition reimbursement

• Employee resource networks

• Paid volunteer leave

• Flexible work options

• Onsite amenities that make working here fun!