Job Description & Details
This is a hands-on, high-stakes contract role for a senior network engineer who has actually built and migrated large enterprise fabrics rather than just studying for certifications. You'll be dropping straight into a major SD-Access and IPv6 migration initiative, meaning you need to bring battle scars from previous campus upgrades and cutovers.
What You'll Actually Be Doing
Your days will be heavily split between deep architectural planning and tactical execution. You'll be translating high-level designs into concrete Low-Level Designs, writing meticulous Method of Procedure (MOP) documents, and building standardized deployment templates. When cutover windows open, you'll be on the front lines driving the migration, troubleshooting unexpected routing anomalies, and making split-second decisions to ensure zero unnecessary downtime.
The Core Tech Stack
You must live and breathe enterprise routing and switching, specifically Cisco SD-Access, spine/leaf architectures, and robust underlay/overlay routing using BGP and OSPF. Beyond the basics, this gig heavily prioritizes native IPv6 migration experience, VXLAN encapsulations, and deep segmentation strategies integrated with RADIUS and wireless authentication. If you haven't wrangled Catalyst Center, ISE, and complex VRF setups in production, this isn't the role to learn on the fly.
Interview Expectations
Expect the hiring team to bypass textbook questions and hit you straight with scenario-based troubleshooting challenges. They will likely present a live migration failure—such as a silent control-plane drop or a silent breakdown in VXLAN transport after an underlay change—and ask you to talk through your step-by-step triage under time constraints. They aren't just looking for the right command; they want to see how calmly you methodically isolate variables and communicate risk to stakeholders.
Application Advice
Your resume needs to scream execution over theory. Do not just list acronyms like SD-Access, BGP, and IPv6; instead, explicitly state the scale of the fabrics you've migrated and the specific role you played in authoring MOPs and handling rollback scenarios. Highlighting your real-world experience with dual-stack transitions and RADIUS authentication policies will get past the automated screens and straight to the hiring manager.