Head of Network Engineering & Architecture

Network Architecture/Network Engineering/Design and Build/SD-WAN/WAN/CISCO/Vertas/Fortinet

Hybrid, up to 3 days per week in Reading

As the Head of Network Engineering & Architecture, you have not only technical network and architect skills but also strong people and managerial skills, giving you the ability to lead your team with a shared vision, to provide it with a clear work organisation and to keep control on your projects progress and risks.

What You'll Do:

• Prepare the future of networks, ensuring the use of efficient and modern technology.
• Collaborate with stakeholders to gather requirements and define project scope and timeline, providing regular updates and gathering feedback for continuous improvement.
• Lead the engineering budgeting, planning, execution, and delivery of the portfolio, managing projects and ensuring they align with strategic goals.
• Monitor project progress, identifying and addressing issues or risks to keep the project on track.
• Foster a collaborative environment by coordinating cross-functional team engineers (WAN, SD-WAN, SSE )
• Implement and promote best practices in Agile methodologies and a DevOps mindset (eg CI/CD, automation).
• Ensure thorough quality assurance processes are in place to meet product standards and customer expectations.
• Ensure proper life cycle of current solutions and address technical debt.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive documentation for all project phases, ensuring knowledge transfer and continuity.
• Manage performance, develop talent and keep skilled staff motivated.
• Lead, mentor and coach your team members to foster knowledge sharing, growth, learning, accountability and team spirit.
• Report on the progress of the network portfolio initiatives and projects
• Act as product owner for your area, manage a backlog and prioritise initiatives to improve key metrics.
• Lead and manage selection and maintenance of infrastructure vendors and partners to support the organisation's goals.

What we are looking for:

• Deep SD-WAN expertise (mandatory) - Proven hands-on experience with technologies such as Versa, Cisco/Viptela, Fortinet, including architecture design and trade-offs.
• Engineering leadership (not operations) - Experience leading architecture and build teams, not service delivery or support.
• Structured execution mindset -Ability to define roadmaps, standards, and engineering governance.
• Program/portfolio management: Proven track record managing complex multi-stream programs with clear prioritisation and tracking.
• Strong communication discipline - Ability to communicate clearly, concisely, and in a structured way (executive-level)
• Transformation experience - Led network modernization (SD-WAN, SASE, cloud connectivity) in complex environments.

If this opportunity sounds of interest and you have the required technical and managerial experience within Network and Architecture, please submit your CV for consideration.