Global Network Engineering Lead

The opportunity

The Global Network Engineering Lead is a strategic leadership role responsible for defining and driving the end-to-end network engineering vision for EY’s global enterprise network infrastructure, spanning WAN, LAN, WiFi, and internet edge domains. The role ensures a resilient, scalable, and high-performing network experience supporting over 400K users across 650+ offices globally. It owns global network standards, architecture, and design governance, translating business and user needs into future-ready engineering solutions while embedding security-by-design principles, including NAC. Acting as the central integrator between engineering, operations, and product teams, it leverages operational insights and user experience metrics to continuously enhance network stability and performance. The role also drives innovation through evaluation of emerging technologies, vendor strategies, and adoption of AI, AIOps, and agentic AI capabilities. As a senior leader, it builds and mentors a high-performing engineering team, drives vendor alignment, and serves as a trusted technical advisor to executive leadership on network evolution, risk, and modernization priorities.

Job Description

• Define and own the global network engineering strategy across WAN, LAN, WiFi, and internet edge domains, enabling consistent, scalable, and high-quality connectivity across the enterprise
• Partner with product owners to develop and execute a multi-year network roadmap, balancing modernization, risk mitigation, capacity growth, and cost optimization
• Drive context-aware network design by adapting global standards to site-specific factors such as RF conditions, user density, and local constraints
• Collaborate with Network Operations to translate recurring service instability patterns into engineering-led design improvements that enhance availability and performance
• Establish, publish, and continuously evolve global network standards, reference architectures, design patterns, and configuration baselines
• Lead engineering governance for technology selection, lifecycle management, and design reviews, ensuring compliance, scalability, and operational effectiveness
• Define and enforce engineering KPIs and quality metrics (e.g., performance, resilience, standards compliance) across regions and vendor ecosystems
• Provide strategic technical guidance to network product owners on lifecycle management (EOL/EOS), risk posture, security architecture, and modernization priorities
• Integrate security-by-design principles into all network architectures in partnership with Information Security, including NAC, segmentation, secure access models, and policy enforcement
• Ensure secure and resilient design patterns for hybrid connectivity models covering office, remote, and cloud environments, and drive remediation of identified security risks
• Identify systemic drivers of network instability and lead structural design improvements, resilience enhancements, and capacity planning initiatives
• Define and enhance network observability strategy, including telemetry standards, actionable dashboards, alerting models, and service health indicators
• Lead initiatives to correlate network telemetry with end-user experience metrics (e.g., collaboration quality, latency, packet loss, WiFi performance) to identify root causes of user impact
• Collaborate with monitoring and platform teams to continuously improve observability tools and instrumentation, ensuring network performance is measured in business-relevant outcomes
• Conduct ongoing industry research to evaluate emerging networking technologies and identify opportunities for innovation aligned with business needs
• Sponsor and lead Proof of Concept and Proof of Value initiatives for new technologies, including advancements in LAN, WiFi, WAN, security, and observability
• Partner with vendors and internal teams to introduce AI, AIOps, and agentic AI capabilities in networking, such as anomaly detection, event correlation, predictive insights, and automated remediation
• Drive adoption of network automation practices, including APIs, orchestration frameworks, and standardized design patterns to improve efficiency, consistency, and change reliability
• Lead strategic vendor engagement by aligning vendor roadmaps with enterprise objectives and influencing product direction where required
• Engage with business and technology stakeholders to translate requirements into engineering solutions and evolve global network standards
• Partner closely with product and platform teams to align network design with evolving enterprise needs, including cloud adoption, collaboration platforms, and digital workplace initiatives
• Present clear engineering recommendations, including risks and trade-offs, to senior leadership, acting as a trusted and credible technical advisor
• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing global network engineering team, driving accountability, delivery excellence, and strategic alignment
• Strengthen engineering capabilities across architecture, automation, security-by-design, RF expertise, and WAN evolution through structured development and hiring
• Foster a culture of innovation by promoting experimentation, disciplined execution of PoCs, and continuous learning across the engineering organization

Knowledge & Competencies Required:

• Deep expertise in enterprise networking, including routing and switching (BGP, OSPF) and technologies such as Cisco Nexus, Meraki, Versa SD‑WAN, QoS, DNS/DHCP, and other industry leading wireless & SDWAN platforms.
• Strong hands-on capability in WiFi and RF design, including interference management and performance optimization in complex environments.
• Solid understanding of network security principles, including NAC, segmentation, and secure access models.
• Proven ability to drive network standards, architecture governance, and scalable design frameworks.
• Strong experience in network observability, performance analytics, and correlating network metrics with end-user experience.
• Demonstrated innovation mindset, with experience evaluating emerging technologies and driving PoCs, automation, AI/AIOps adoption.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions and influence enterprise-wide engineering decisions.
• Strong stakeholder and vendor management, including influencing vendor roadmaps aligned to business needs.
• Proven strategic leadership capability, with experience leading large-scale transformation initiatives.
• Strong people leadership skills, including managing global, high-performing engineering teams and developing senior technical talent.
• Good awareness of industry trends and evolving network technologies to drive continuous improvement.

Job Requirements

Education:

• Bachelor's degree in technical field or equivalent work experience

Experience:

• Minimum of 20 years of experience in Network technology support.

Certification Requirements:

• CCNP preferred, Certification on Versa or CCIE is value add.