Network Engineer - Gift of Hope

Gift of Hope is proud to serve as the federally designated not-for-profit organ procurement organization (OPO) that coordinates organ and tissue donation and provides compassionate service to families of donors in the northern three-quarters of Illinois and northwest Indiana.

Since our inception in 1986, we have coordinated donations that have saved the lives of more than 23,000 organ transplant recipients, and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of tissue transplant recipients. As one of 58 organ procurement organizations that make up the nation’s organ donation system, we work with 183 hospitals in our donation service area.

The ideal candidate will be responsible for designing, implementing, managing, and maintaining the organization’s network infrastructure. This includes working with the Architecture Team to evaluate and ensure the efficient and secure operation of IT & business systems.

Salary Range: $94,223-$117,000

Network Design:

• Design end-to-end network solutions, including LAN, WAN, VPNs, routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, data center, cloud networks, and other network-related devices that meet performance, reliability, and security requirements.
• Evaluate new networking technologies, products, and services to identify opportunities for improvement and innovation.
• Participate in design reviews, provide technical guidance and mentorship to other team members.

Implementation & Configuration:

• Deploy and configure network infrastructure components based on the design, ensuring proper integration with existing systems and adherence to best practices and security standards.
• Performing regular maintenance tasks such as software updates, security patches, and hardware upgrades to ensure the network operates smoothly and securely.
• Configure firewalls & implement security policies, security detection, prevention & response systems.

Security and Compliance:

• Develop, implement, and enforce security measures to protect the organization's network from unauthorized access, malware, and other threats. This includes setting up firewalls, security event detection systems, and implementing security best practices.
• Assist during regular security audits and vulnerability assessments.
• Ensure compliance with industry regulations and standards.

Technical Support:

• Diagnose and resolve network-related problems, whether they stem from hardware failures, software issues, configuration errors, or security breaches. This requires a strong understanding of networking protocols and troubleshooting methodologies. This may involve using network monitoring tools, packet sniffers, and other diagnostic utilities.
• Collaborate with the service desk team to resolve escalated technical problems.
• Develop and maintain documentation for troubleshooting and network configurations.
• Perform incident root cause analysis and remediation of system outages.
• Participate in on-call rotation to provide off-hours support and maintenance.

Collaboration and Communication:

• Collaborate with peers, system architects, and other stakeholders to develop effective IT solutions.
• Work closely with other IT teams, such as system administrators, security specialists, and application developers, to ensure that the network infrastructure meets the organization's overall goals and requirements.
• Effectively communicate technical information to both technical and non-technical stakeholders. This includes providing status updates, explaining network issues, and proposing solutions in a clear and concise manner.
• Develop and maintain network documentation, including diagrams, configurations, and operational procedures to facilitate troubleshooting, upgrades, and future expansions.
• Ensure that network operations remain well-documented and accessible to other team members.
• Interact with network equipment vendors to procure hardware, software, and support services, as well as managing vendor relationships and contracts.

Continuous Improvement:

• Monitor network performance, identifying and addressing issues such as bottlenecks, latency, and downtime. This involves utilizing network monitoring tools and implementing optimizations to improve efficiency and reliability.
• Forecast future network needs based on business growth, technological advancements, and make recommendations for network upgrades or expansions as necessary.
• Propose and implement improvements to enhance system performance and efficiency.
• Participate in ongoing professional development to stay current with the latest networking trends, protocols, security threats and experiment with new technologies.

Education and Training Required

• Bachelor’s degree in information technology, computer science, related field, or equivalent experience.
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g., CCNA, CCNP, CompTIA Network+) are preferred.
• Certifications such as CCIE, CCDE, CISSP or equivalent are highly desirable.

Experience and Skills

• 5-10 years of experience working as a Network Engineer or in a similar role.
• Hands-on experience with routing and switching technologies (e.g., Cisco, Meraki).
• In-depth knowledge of networking protocols, and technologies including TCP/IP, BGP, OSPF & EIGRP, VRRP, HSRP, VLANs, VTP, VoIP, Multicast, SDN, DNS, DHCP, SNMP, QoS, DSCP, SAML, 802.1x, Radius.
• Experience with cloud service models including IaaS, PaaS, SaaS.
• Experience with scripting languages such as PowerShell, Automation and Python.
• Experience designing and implementing complex network solutions in enterprise environments.
• Experience with cloud networking platforms (e.g., Azure, Google Cloud, AWS).
• Experience working in a data center environment.
• Understanding of virtualization technologies (e.g., VMware, Hyper-V).
• Proficiency in network security principles and technologies, such as firewalls, VPNs, IDS/IPS.
• Strong understanding of network monitoring and troubleshooting tools (e.g., Wireshark, LogicMonitor, Derdack, SentinelOne, Rapid7).
• Excellent problem-solving, communication, attention to detail, and teamwork skills.
• Strong communication and interpersonal skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively with team members and stakeholders.
• Proficiency in Microsoft 365/Teams/SharePoint/Visio .

Strong hands-on experience delivering and supporting solutions using the following technologies:

• Meraki Wi-Fi, Cisco Nexus, Cisco Catalyst, Cisco ISE, Cisco AnyConnect, Kemp Load Balancer, Microsoft NPS Radius, ServiceNow, ITIL, internet, EPL, SEoD, IPAM, Certificates, APC Power Backup.

The policy of Gift of Hope Organ and Tissue Donor Network is to promote equal employment opportunity through a positive and continuous program of specific practices designed to ensure the full realization of equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, disability, or status as a disabled veteran, recently separated veteran, other protected veteran, or Armed Forces service medal veteran designated under the Vietnam Era Veterans' Readjustment Assistance Act, as amended (VEVRAA).  This reaffirms our commitment to this policy.