Lead Data Center Network Engineer - Cisco ACI

Overview

We are seeking a full-time Lead Data Center Network Engineer (Cisco ACI) at Garmin's headquarters in Olathe, Kansas. In this role, you will serve as the technical leader for Garmin's global data center networking infrastructure, with primary responsibility for Cisco ACI environments, data center network architecture, lifecycle management, modernization initiatives, and operational excellence. You will lead large-scale network deployments, upgrades, hardware refreshes, capacity planning efforts, and incident response activities while partnering with cross-functional teams to ensure highly available, scalable, and secure network services. This position participates in a global 24x7 on-call rotation and serves as a senior escalation point for critical network incidents and infrastructure outages.

Essential Functions

• Provides technical leadership and contributes significantly to the data center networking roadmap and long-term infrastructure strategy.
• Serves as the subject matter expert for Cisco ACI and modern data center networking technologies.
• Leads the design, implementation, maintenance, and support of enterprise data center network infrastructure.
• Plans and executes Cisco ACI lifecycle management activities including fabric upgrades, code upgrades, hardware replacements, fabric expansions, and migration projects.
• Develops reliable solutions to complex technical challenges requiring creativity, innovation, and advanced troubleshooting skills.
• Leads major incident response efforts, root cause analysis activities, and corrective action planning for critical network infrastructure.
• Serves as a senior technical escalation resource for production issues affecting business-critical services.
• Establishes and maintains network architecture standards, operational procedures, and engineering best practices.
• Collaborates with server, storage, security, cloud, and application teams to deliver integrated infrastructure solutions.
• Leads network capacity planning, growth forecasting, and technology refresh initiatives.
• Evaluates and implements new technologies to improve reliability, scalability, automation, and operational efficiency.
• Develops and maintains technical documentation, design standards, implementation procedures, and operational runbooks.
• Provides mentorship, technical guidance, and leadership to less experienced engineers.
• Participates in a global 24x7 on-call rotation and responds to infrastructure incidents and emergencies as required.
• Supports planned maintenance activities, change implementations, upgrades, and infrastructure migrations during approved maintenance windows.
• Serves as a leader of change by driving continuous improvement initiatives and modernization efforts across the network environment.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Engineering, Management Information Systems, or related field AND a minimum of 9 years relevant experience
• Demonstrated strong verbal, written, and interpersonal communication skills.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical projects and initiatives.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Cisco ACI in enterprise or large-scale data center environments.
• Experience performing Cisco ACI fabric upgrades, software upgrades, hardware replacements, lifecycle management activities, and fabric expansion projects.
• Strong understanding of modern data center networking architectures including leaf-spine designs, VXLAN, EVPN, and software-defined networking concepts.
• Hands-on experience with Cisco Nexus platforms and NX-OS.
• Advanced knowledge of routing and switching protocols including BGP, OSPF, ECMP, HSRP, VLANs, and Layer 2/Layer 3 networking principles.
• Experience planning and executing network hardware refreshes, platform migrations, and end-of-life/end-of-support remediation efforts.
• Proven experience troubleshooting complex network issues within mission-critical production environments.
• Experience leading incident response efforts and coordinating activities across multiple technology teams.
• Strong understanding of network resiliency, high availability, disaster recovery, and business continuity principles.
• Experience with network monitoring, telemetry, performance analysis, and troubleshooting tools.
• Experience participating in a 24x7 on-call rotation supporting enterprise or data center network infrastructure.
• Ability to work occasional after-hours maintenance windows supporting upgrades, migrations, and infrastructure changes.

Desired Qualifications

• Cisco certifications such as CCNP Data Center, CCNP Enterprise, CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure, or CCIE Data Center.
• Experience with Cisco Routed Optical Networking (RON) platforms and optical transport technologies.
• Experience with DWDM, dark fiber, and inter-data-center connectivity solutions.
• Experience supporting multiple geographically distributed data centers.
• Experience with Cisco Nexus Dashboard, Network Insights, and related management platforms.
• Experience automating network deployments and operational processes using tools such as Python, Ansible, Terraform, Git, or other automation frameworks.
• Experience developing infrastructure-as-code and automated validation methodologies.
• Knowledge of storage networking technologies and high-bandwidth data center environments.
• Previous experience serving as a technical lead, project lead, or engineering mentor.
• Strong analytical, troubleshooting, and decision-making skills.
• Experience supporting large-scale enterprise, cloud, or mission-critical infrastructure environments.

Garmin International is an equal opportunity employer.  Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, citizenship, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, veteran’s status, age or disability.

This position is eligible for Garmin's benefit program. Details can be found here: Garmin Benefits