Network Engineer

Overview GovCIO is currently hiring for a Network Engineer to support a critical IT modernization effort for the Air National Guard (ANG). Candidates must reside in or near the Chantilly, VA area. This position is primarily onsite, with occasional remote work in the Chantilly area and more than 50% travel required.

This role is primarily responsible for performing control activities across enterprise IT infrastructure deployments, validating compliance with technical standards, and supporting consistent execution of engineered solutions across all CONUS/OCONUS-based ANG installations. The Network Engineer will help ensure deployment accuracy, system reliability, and security compliance across all sites.

Responsibilities Engineers, validates, and optimizes end-to-end network architecture across the entire system lifecycle, directing technical requirements gathering, high-level/low-level design (HLD/LLD), implementation documentation, and system integration. Establishes and executes rigorous network performance baselines, Quality of Service (QoS) frameworks, and high-availability criteria to ensure infrastructure resilience and SLA compliance. Enforces strict configuration management and security baselines across all core, edge, and transport layers. Critically reviews network topology designs, change specifications, and Methods of Procedure (MOPs) against technical standards, protocol requirements, and hardware capabilities. Conducts detailed engineering evaluations of routing/switching architectures, physical/virtual tools, and deployment methodologies while leading automated network readiness verification, requirement traceability matrices, and validation testing to guarantee line-rate performance and seamless interoperability. Develops, publishes, and implements test plans for complex, multi-tier, distributed, applications throughout the full lifecycle.

• Designs, builds, and maintains automated test frameworks using commercial network emulation tools (e.g., Spirent, Ixia, GNS3) and realistic packet-capture data sets to validate infrastructure performance.
• Executes end-to-end infrastructure validation, including functional path verification, regression testing, line-rate load/stress testing, and comprehensive system interoperability testing.
• Isolates, debugs, and triages critical hardware and protocol defects; collaborates with hardware/software development teams to embed robust verification gates within the deployment pipeline.
• Enforces defense-in-depth security postures by applying, auditing, and hardening all network operating systems, appliances, and compute components against DISA STIG benchmarks.
• Develops High-Level and Low-Level Designs (HLD/LLD) to build, provision, and deploy highly resilient network services, core routing/switching platforms, and edge devices.
• Evaluates and approves comprehensive technical test plans, verification procedures, and cross-domain architectures to ensure absolute alignment with baseline contractual and performance requirements.
• Architects and executes rigorous system requirement verification plans and formal User Acceptance Testing (UAT) matrices to secure technical customer sign-off.
• Conduct regular testing and analysis of network hardware and software to identify vulnerabilities and performance issues; document findings.
• Establishes, implements, and maintains configuration baselines, Quality of Service (QoS) frameworks, and performance metrics across the enterprise network infrastructure.
• Monitors network health via SNMP/telemetry, isolates Tier-3 complex transport faults, and collaborates with cross-functional engineering teams to perform root-cause analysis and optimize network capacity.
• Manages authoritative network configuration backups (CMDB), maintains complete audit trails of system incidents, and catalogs technical corrective actions to guarantee regulatory compliance.

Qualifications High School with 10+ years (or commensurate experience)

Required Skills And Experience

• Clearance Required: Secret
• DoD 8140 Level II certification (Security+ CE, CCNA-Security, CySA+,CND)
• Network Performance Monitoring
• Knowledge of Risk Management Framework (RMF) and Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs)
• Root Cause Analysis & Corrective Actions (RCCA)
• Understanding of non-destructive testing (NDT) methods.

Preferred Skills And Experience

• Familiarity with Quality Management System (QMS) Standar…