Global Head of Network Engineering - Networks

Blue Wireless is seeking a Global Head of Network Engineering to lead and develop its global Network Engineering organisation.

This role is accountable for the engineering strategy, architecture, technical standards and lifecycle of Blue Wireless's global network infrastructure. The scope includes global Points of Presence, backbone and cloud connectivity, GSP and carrier interconnects, wireless and satellite access integration, network automation, observability, resilience and Level 4 engineering support for live services.

In addition, the role is key in maintaining a robust and working network and services environment by maintaining the patch management/release management strategy for network services in line with Network Security standards (ISO27001). The team will be responsible for approving the release of new devices in the products and services strategy, maintaining service stability and functional integration compliance into the service delivery and service assurance processes.

The Global Head of Network Engineering will lead engineering managers and geographically distributed teams. The role will establish a consistent global operating model with clear accountability, strong technical governance and effective collaboration across time zones.

The role works closely with Product, Operations, Field Services, Security, Commercial and Customer teams to translate approved business and service requirements into scalable technical designs and reliable engineering outcomes.

Global engineering leadership

• Lead, organise and develop a geographically distributed Network Engineering function, including engineering managers, technical leads and specialist engineers.
• Establish a global operating model covering regional responsibilities, decision rights, escalation paths and follow the sun collaboration.
• Build leadership depth through coaching, performance management, career development and succession planning.
• Develop regional engineering talent who can independently guide regional teams, make sound technical decisions and manage technical performance expectations.
• Own workforce and capability planning, including technical recruitment, onboarding, skills development and retention.
• Create a culture of accountability, technical curiosity, collaboration, inclusion and customer focused execution.
• Maintain a sustainable engineering escalation and on call model for business critical global services.

Network architecture and engineering standards

• Own the target architecture and technical direction for Blue Wireless's global network infrastructure.
• Define and govern standards covering routing, switching, Layer 2 transport, internet connectivity, cloud interconnects, security, observability and network automation.
• Ensure designs are scalable, resilient, supportable, secure and commercially sustainable.
• Chair technical design and architecture reviews for significant changes, new PoPs and partner interconnects.
• Lead the engineering review process of the non-standard business review process, for special designs to customers, submitting review to commercial finance for processing as well as relevant Service Delivery templates to be generated
• Maintain reference architectures, configuration standards, engineering documentation and acceptance criteria.
• Reduce unnecessary regional variation through reusable global designs and deployment patterns.
• Manage technical debt, infrastructure lifecycle risks and network technology refresh programmes.
• Be part of technology forums and actively pursue standardizations and certifications from governing bodies

Automation tooling and engineering efficiency

• Define the strategy for network automation, configuration management, telemetry and API driven orchestration.
• Increase the use of Infrastructure as Code, automated testing and repeatable deployment workflows.
•  Improve configuration consistency and reduce manual engineering activities that introduce risk or limit scale.
• Establish authoritative sources for network inventory, topology, configuration and service dependencies.
• Improve operational visibility through actionable monitoring, performance analytics and capacity reporting.
• Measure and progressively reduce repetitive work and avoidable engineering effort.

Partner and cross functional leadership

• Serve as the senior technical interface for GSPs, carriers, mobile network operators, colocation providers, cloud providers and network technology partners.
• Lead technical governance and escalation with strategic partners, including performance, resilience and roadmap discussions.
• Work with Product Management to assess technical feasibility and provide engineering estimates, constraints and options.
• Partner with Operations to define the boundary between live service operations and engineering escalation.
• Work with Security to ensure architecture and engineering standards meet security and compliance requirements.
• Support Commercial and customer facing teams in strategic or highly complex technical discussions.
• Represent Engineering in executive forums and communicate performance, investment needs, risks and delivery status.
• Own the engineering budget, resource allocation and relevant infrastructure investment proposals.

• 8 or more years of relevant network, telecommunications or infrastructure engineering experience.
• 3 years in senior engineering leadership, including responsibility for engineering managers or multiple technical teams.
• Demonstrated experience leading globally distributed teams across regions, cultures and time zones.
• Proven accountability for business critical network infrastructure in a carrier, service provider, managed network or cloud connectivity environment.
• Experience managing the engineering lifecycle of PoPs, backbone networks, carrier or GSP interconnects, or comparable multi region infrastructure.
• Strong people management capability, including hiring, coaching, performance management, organisational design and succession planning.
• Experience managing major incidents and communicating with executives, customers and partners during high pressure situations.
• Strong delivery discipline, with experience balancing infrastructure growth, reliability, technical debt and operational priorities.
• Financial and commercial awareness, including budget management, investment prioritisation and vendor performance management.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to explain technical risks and tradeoffs to nontechnical stakeholders.
• Comfort operating in a fast paced, international and high growth environment.
• Willingness to travel internationally when required.

• Deep understanding of service provider and enterprise networking, including BGP, routing and switching, internet transit, IP addressing, QoS and network interconnects.
• Strong knowledge of Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, including Ethernet, VLANs, tunnelling, MPLS and IP VPN, and resilient transport architectures.
• Experience designing or operating multi region Points of Presence, backbone networks, colocation infrastructure and cloud connectivity.
• Understanding of SD WAN, SASE and SSE, and enterprise WAN integration models.
• Familiarity with LTE and 5G fixed wireless access, mobile network integration and multi operator connectivity.
• Familiarity with satellite services, private network interconnects and hybrid cellular satellite architectures is strongly preferred.
• Experience with network observability, service assurance, capacity management and performance engineering.
• Knowledge of network automation, APIs, configuration management, Infrastructure as Code and automated validation.
• Strong understanding of high availability, disaster recovery, failure domain design and secure network architecture.
• Ability to remain technically credible while leading through managers and senior technical specialists.

Performance should be assessed through a balanced scorecard rather than uptime alone.

• Availability and service level performance across global PoPs and interconnects.
• Reduction in severe incidents, repeat incidents and customer impacting network events.
• Improvement in detection, mitigation and mean time to recovery.
• Change success rate and reduction in change related incidents.
• Delivery of PoP, interconnect, capacity and infrastructure programmes to agreed timelines.
• Network capacity headroom and reduction of preventable capacity constraints.
• Increased standardisation and automation across the global network.
• Reduction in manual operational work and recurring engineering escalations.
• Completion of post incident corrective actions and technical debt commitments.
• Engineering employee engagement, retention and leadership succession readiness.
• Hiring quality and time required for new engineers to become effective.
• Partner performance and timely resolution of carrier or GSP engineering issues.
• Engineering expenditure against budget and demonstrated value from infrastructure investments.

#LI-CC1