Networks - Operations Controller

Description

Position Summary

The Networks - Operations Controller (NOC) provides critical support to the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) under the Integrated Research and Development for Enterprise Solutions (IRES) contract. This role is responsible for monitoring, managing, and maintaining network operations to ensure the availability, reliability, and security of mission-critical systems. The NOC serves as the first line of defense in identifying and resolving network issues, coordinating with technical teams, and implementing operational procedures to maintain optimal performance across enterprise environments. The position requires strong analytical skills, attention to detail, and the ability to work in a fast-paced, mission-focused setting.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Provide real time operational control and service assurance for enterprise networks that support DoD missions (IL4/5/6).
• Monitor network health and dependencies, leads incident response bridges, enforces change controls, and drives continuous improvement against SLAs/SLOs across data center, campus/branch, WAN/SD WAN, and boundary security segments.

Monitoring & Incident Response:

• Maintain 24×7 situational awareness of network health (availability, latency, loss, jitter, capacity, link/path status).
• Triage, contain, and restore service during incidents using documented runbooks/playbooks; coordinate swarming with
• Routing/Switching, Boundary Security, Platform, and Cyber teams.
• Execute initial impact assessment, user/stakeholder communications, workarounds, and continuity steps, capture timelines and decisions for post incident review.

Event & Observability Management:

• Operate dashboards, alerts, and synthetic/active tests; tune thresholds to reduce noise while protecting SLOs.
• Correlate telemetry (syslog, SNMP/streaming telemetry, NetFlow/IPFIX, route/adjacency state) with actionable escalation paths.
• Validate monitoring for new or changed network services (health checks and alerts in place before go live).

Change, Release & Configuration Control:

• Enforce CAB/CCB decisions, maintenance windows, freeze periods, and back out plans for network changes.
• Verify pre change readiness (peer review, approvals, rollback tested, comms prepared) and confirm post change health.
• Keep CMDB/CIs and topology/dependency maps current, record changes and relationships for traceability.

Problem, Availability & Capacity Management:

• Lead problem investigations (recurring incidents, trend spikes); run root cause analysis (RCA) and durable corrective actions.
• Track availability, MTTR/MTBF, error budgets, and capacity trends; recommend scaling, policy tuning, or resiliency patterns (path diversity, ECMP, QoS adjustments).
• Drive backlog items with owners and verify closure via effectiveness checks.

Boundary Security & Compliance (Operations):

• Execute patch/vulnerability windows for boundary devices per plan; validate policy deployments and change results.
• Operate within RMF/DISA STIG constraints; preserve audit trails and evidence for assessments and ATO/cATO sustainment.
• Coordinate with Cyber/Blue Team on detections, containment steps, and after-action improvements.

Service Level Management & Reporting:

• Measure and report SLAs/SLOs (site availability, ticket KPIs, change success, incident induced change rate) with daily/weekly/monthly executive rollups.
• Maintain stakeholder communications for incidents, maintenance, and changes throughout the event lifecycle.

Knowledge & Documentation:

• Author/maintain runbooks, troubleshooting guides, operational standards, KEDB (Known Error DB), and service catalogs; keep knowledge articles current.
• Contribute to readiness reviews, go live checklists, and lessons learned, coach junior controllers and cross train peers.

Minimum Qualifications (Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities)

• Must have, or obtain within 90 days of hire, a DoD 8570 compliant certification (e.g., Security+).
• Must have, or obtain, an active DoD Secret Security Clearance
• Must have 14, or more, years of general (full-time) work experience
• May be reduced with advanced education
• Must have 7, or more, years of Network experience
• Must have 1, or more, years of experience working in a management or leadership role
• Must have 3, or more, years in network operations/NOC for large enterprise or DoD environments.
• Must have a solid grasp of L2/L3 fundamentals (VLANs, HSRP/VRRP, routing protocols such as OSPF/BGP, ACLs/NAT), SD WAN concepts, QoS basics, and boundary security operations.
• Must be familiar with telemetry sources (syslog, SNMP, NetFlow/IPFIX, streaming telemetry) and how to interpret them during incidents.
• Must be familiar with Microsoft 365, Azure, Active Directory, or similar enterprise platforms.
• Must have a strong incident/problem/change management discipline (ITIL 4), clear communications, and calm, structured decision making under pressure.

Desired Requirements:

• Have an active DoD Top Secret Security Clearance w/ SCI Eligibility
• Have a Bachelor's degree, or higher, in computer science, Information Technology
• Have experience supporting the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) or other DoD organizations.
• Be familiar with ITIL-based service operations and ticketing systems.
• Have a CCNA (or JNCIA), with progress toward CCNP welcomed.
• Have Fortinet NSE 4+ and/or firewall gateway associate level credential (if boundary operations are in scope).
• Have an ITIL® 4 Foundation.

Physical Demands and Work Environment

The physical demands described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this position. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform these functions. While performing the duties of this position, the employee is regularly required to talk or hear. The employee frequently is required to use hands or fingers, handle or feel objects, tools, or controls. The employee is occasionally required to stand; walk; sit; and reach with hands and arms. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 25 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this position include close vision, distance vision, and the ability to adjust focus. The noise level in the work environment is usually low to moderate.

Travel

Up to 10%

Shift

• Hours and shift determined by location.

Note

This job description is not designed to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties, responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice. Employees will be required to follow any other job-related instructions and to perform any other job-related duties requested by any person authorized to give instructions or assignments. This document does not create an employment contract, implied or otherwise, other than an "at will" relationship.

The company is an Equal Opportunity Employer, drug free workplace, and complies with ADA regulations as applicable.

Salary Description

Salary Range: $140,000 - $170,000