Senior Network Engineer

Morae Global Corporation is seeking a highly technical, hands‑on Senior Network Engineer to own and manage the switching, routing, and firewall infrastructure across our six global data centres. This is a critical role operating in a 24/7/365 high‑availability environment that directly underpins Morae’s eDiscovery hosting platform and on‑premises hosting revenue.

We are in the midst of a major Data Centre Modernisation Programme – replacing end‑of‑life core routers and switches with new Cisco Nexus 9300, Catalyst 9200, and Catalyst 8300 platforms across all sites. The successful candidate will be instrumental in the design, deployment, and ongoing operation of this refreshed network estate.

Above all, we need someone who can independently diagnose and resolve complex network outages under pressure. While Cisco TAC and vendor support contracts are available, our expectation is that the engineer in this role has the depth of experience and confidence to troubleshoot the vast majority of issues without depending on external support. Practical, proven experience matters more to us than certifications alone.

We operate data centres in the UK, US and Switzerland to satisfy client data‑sovereignty requirements. Each country has a production site and a disaster‑recovery site with mirrored data and the capability to assume operations at short notice.

Key Responsibilities

Network Operations & Troubleshooting

• Act as the primary technical authority for all data‑centre network infrastructure, including switches, routers, and firewalls.
• Independently diagnose and resolve complex network outages, performance degradations, and connectivity issues across all six data centres, minimising reliance on Cisco TAC.
• Perform root‑cause analysis of incidents and produce detailed post‑incident reports with remediation actions.
• Proactively monitor network health using SNMP, syslog, Cisco FMC, and enterprise monitoring tools; identify and resolve issues before they impact services.
• Maintain and execute network operations runbooks for daily monitoring of routers, switches, and firewalls.
• Play a lead technical role in the ongoing DC Modernisation Programme alongside our implementation partner—designing, configuring, testing, and deploying new Cisco Nexus 9300, Catalyst 9200, and Catalyst 8300 equipment.
• Develop and validate detailed cutover plans, runbooks, and rollback procedures for each site refresh.
• Coordinate with third‑party integrators and Cisco during equipment staging, installation, and validation.
• Ensure seamless migration from end‑of‑life platforms to the new network architecture with zero or minimal client impact.

Firewall & Security

• Manage Cisco Firepower 4115 HA firewall pairs across all regions using Cisco Firepower Management Centre (FMC).
• Design and maintain firewall rulesets, NAT policies, VPN tunnels, and DMZ architectures.
• Evaluate firmware release notes thoroughly before any upgrade to identify breaking changes.
• Support ISO 27001 and SOC 2 compliance requirements relating to network security controls.

WAN & Office Connectivity

• Support Azure vWAN connectivity between Cisco Meraki office sites and data centres.
• Assist with IPsec site‑to‑site VPN configuration between Meraki MX appliances and Azure gateways.
• Provide escalation support for EUC teams for Meraki office network issues where required.

Change & Configuration Management

• Follow and champion ITIL‑aligned change management processes for all network changes.
• Maintain accurate network documentation, topology diagrams, IP address management (IPAM), and configuration backups.
• Participate in Change Advisory Board (CAB) reviews and produce change implementation plans.
• Work closely with the infrastructure, VMware, storage, and information security teams.
• Mentor and upskill junior engineers on Cisco technologies and network best practices.
• Identify opportunities to automate repetitive network tasks using scripting (Python, Ansible, PowerShell).
• Contribute to capacity planning and network architecture decisions as the business scales.

Technical Environment

The engineer will work with the following technologies on a daily basis:

• Core Switching: Cisco Nexus 9300 Series (NX‑OS 10.x, 36‑port 40/100G QSFP28)
• Aggregation/Access Switching: Cisco Catalyst 9200 Series (IOS‑XE)
• Routing: Cisco Catalyst 8300 Series Edge Platforms (IOS‑XE, BGP, OSPF, IS‑IS)
• Office Networking: Cisco Meraki MX Firewalls, Meraki Switches, Meraki Wireless APs
• Virtualisation (awareness): VMware vSphere / vCenter, ESXi, distributed switches
• Storage (awareness): Pure Storage, Dell iSCSI SAN, Dell PowerScale (Isilon)
• Monitoring: SNMP, Syslog, VMware ARIA (on‑prem), enterprise alerting tools
• Compliance Frameworks: ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II

Skills & Experience Required

We place greater value on demonstrable, hands‑on experience than on certifications alone. The ideal candidate will have a track record of independently managing and troubleshooting enterprise‑grade Cisco data centre networks in production environments.

5+ years managing Cisco switches and routers in a multi‑site data centre environment.

Expert‑level Cisco NX‑OS (Nexus 9000 series) and IOS‑XE (Catalyst) experience.

Hands‑on Nexus 9300 deployment, VPC, vPC fabric configuration.

Catalyst 9200 access‑layer switching.

VLAN design, spanning tree (RSTP/MST), port‑channels, Layer 2/3 boundaries.

Firewall & Security

3+ years managing Cisco Firepower / FTD firewalls in HA.

Cisco FMC administration, policy design, NAT, and VPN management.

Strong understanding of DMZ architecture, ACLs, and zone‑based security.

Firmware upgrade planning including release‑note analysis for breaking changes.

Routing Protocols

Solid BGP experience (eBGP peering, route policy, prefix lists, AS‑path filters).

OSPF multi‑area design and troubleshooting.

Static routing and policy‑based routing.

WAN & Office Networking

IPsec site‑to‑site VPN configuration and troubleshooting.

Automation & Scripting

Comfortable with CLI‑based configuration at scale.

Scripting with Python or PowerShell for network tasks.

Compliance & Governance

Experience working in an ISO 27001 and/or SOC 2 certified environment.

Understanding of change management (ITIL) processes.

Soft Skills

Proven ability to remain calm and methodical under pressure during outages.

Self‑starter who can work independently with minimal supervision.

Strong documentation and communication skills.

Willingness to participate in an on‑call rota and work outside business hours for planned changes.

Certifications

While hands‑on experience is our primary measure, we expect the successful candidate to hold or be actively working towards industry‑recognised certifications that demonstrate their depth of knowledge.

Required:

• Demonstrable skills at or above CCNA level as an absolute minimum.
• CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure (or progress towards).

Working Arrangements

• Location: Hybrid – minimum 2 days per week in the Morae London office. Occasional travel to UK and international data centre sites may be required for refresh deployments and incident response.
• Hours: Standard business hours with participation in an on‑call rota to support the 24/7/365 production environment. Planned maintenance windows typically occur outside business hours.
• Travel: Occasional travel to data centre sites in the UK, US, and Switzerland as required for major deployments, audits, or critical incident support.

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