Sr Network Engineer, SD-WAN

Ardent Health is a leading provider of healthcare in growing mid-sized urban communities across the U.S. With a focus on people and investments in innovative services and technologies, Ardent is passionate about making healthcare better and easier to access. Through its subsidiaries, Ardent delivers care through a system of 30 acute care hospitals, 24,000+ team members and more than 280 sites of care with over 1,800 affiliated providers across six states.

POSITION SUMMARY:

The Senior Network Engineer, SD-WAN is responsible for leading the design, deployment, and support of enterprise healthcare wireless networks, with a primary focus on Cisco technologies and a secondary focus on Fortinet solutions at clinic locations. This role ensures secure, high-availability connectivity for critical clinical applications, compliance with healthcare standards, and seamless integration across hospitals and remote sites.

• Design and implement advanced SD-WAN and SASE architectures.
• Optimize application-aware routing, traffic engineering, and security policies.
• Provide expert-level troubleshooting for complex LAN/WAN, SD-WAN, and SASE issues across multi-vendor platforms (Cisco, Fortinet, etc.).
• Lead the configuration, deployment, and lifecycle management of network platforms using vendor specific centralized management and orchestration tools.
• Engineer and deploy new branch locations, including zero-touch provisioning (ZTP) and secure cloud connectivity.
• Develop and fine-tune traffic management, network segmentation, and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) policies.
• Ensure seamless interoperability between SD-WAN, SASE, cloud networks, and traditional infrastructure.
• Maintain comprehensive network documentation, emphasizing automation and version control.
• Act as a technical lead, mentoring junior engineers and promoting best practices.
• Actively participate in project planning and architectural reviews.
• Develop and review complex network change scripts, leveraging automation tools (e.g., Ansible, Python).
• Collaborate with security, cloud, and application teams for end-to-end network integrity and compliance.

Education & Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in Information Systems / Computer Science.
  • Additional years of experience may substitute for the required education on a year-for-year basis.
• 7+ years' experience with Cisco routing, switching with a strong focus on wireless products.
• 4+ years of experience working in Information Systems, preferably in the healthcare industry.
• CCNP Certification
• Experienced in configuring Cisco Catalyst and AireOS wireless controllers
• Experienced in configuring FortiAPs, Fortiswitch, and Fortigate platforms
• Experienced in configuring and troubleshooting 802.1x with Cisco ISE
• Experienced in working critical issues with Cisco and Fortinet TAC organizations
• Experienced in configuring wireless clients
• Experienced in collecting wireless packet captures
• Experience with implementing QOS/COS
• Experienced with site survey and design tools such as Ekahau

Knowledge, Skills & Abilities:

• High proficiency in the configuration and troubleshooting of advanced wireless networks including RF spectrum analysis, and interference remediation.
• High proficiency in Radio Channel Planning, Wireless Bridging
• Highly Proficient in the operation and analysis of LAN and WAN packet captures, and Network Analysis
• Proficient with DNS, DHCP, WINS configuration and troubleshooting