Principal Wireless / WiFi engineer

Location: Cherry Hills Village, CO Salary: $135,000.00 USD Annually - $190,000.00 USD Annually Description:
Company: Fortune 100

Position: Principal Wi-Fi Engineer

Duration: Direct hire/permanent

Location: Greenwood Village (4 days onsite each week)

About the Role

This is the Director's right hand. The Principal Engineer I is the senior technical authority on the team - the person the Director trusts to make platform decisions, lead execution, and be the final gate before changes hit the production network. When Tier 2 engineers are ready to deploy, they come to this person for technical sign-off and guidance.

This is a hands-on technical leadership position on a team that operates WiFi and wireless infrastructure for one of the largest telecommunications providers in the US. You own a technical domain end-to-end: standards compliance, upgrade execution, incident resolution, capacity planning, and the development of the engineers beneath you.

This is NOT a design-only or advisory role. You execute maintenance windows. You troubleshoot under pressure. You are the deployment authority that Tier 2 engineers bring their work to before it touches the network.

What You'll Actually Do

Serve as the deployment gate - Tier 2 engineers bring their MOPs, configs, and upgrade plans to you for technical review and approval before execution. You are the last check before production.

Own a platform domain - subject matter expert and final technical approver for your area (wireless controllers, AAA/RADIUS, WAG/BNG, firewalls/ACLs, or network automation)

Execute complex upgrades and maintenance - plan, document, execute, validate, and communicate for firmware upgrades, configuration campaigns, and hardware replacements across a multi-vendor fleet

Troubleshoot production incidents - Tier 3 escalation point. Root cause analysis, vendor engagement, clear communication to leadership during outages

Build and maintain automation - Python scripts, Ansible playbooks, CI/CD pipelines for repeatable operational tasks

Drive standards compliance - audit fleet against published standards, build remediation plans, execute corrections

Develop engineers - the Tier 2s on this team need to learn how to be actual engineers. You teach by doing, review their work, raise the bar, and build their confidence to eventually own domains themselves

Present with clarity - 2 AM outage bridge or executive status update, you communicate crisply and confidently. You represent the team's technical credibility.

Coordinate cross-team - work with Planning & Design, peer operations teams, NOC, and vendor TAC on handoffs, escalations, and shared infrastructure

Technical Environment

Multi-vendor network operations environment including Ruckus wireless controllers, Nokia AAA and WAG/BNG routers, Cisco ASA firewalls, Juniper SRX firewalls, Ruckus ICX venue switches, and A10 load balancers. Automation stack includes Python, Ansible, GitLab CI, and FastAPI. Monitoring via Splunk, Grafana, and proprietary inventory/alarming platforms. Change management through Jira, NOC Portal (MOPs), and Remedy (CRQs).

Required Experience

5+ years in network operations or network engineering - must have executed changes on production network equipment, not design-only

Hands-on CLI proficiency with at least two of: Cisco IOS/NX-OS, Nokia SROS, Juniper JunOS, Ruckus SmartZone

Change management discipline - MOPs, CRQs, maintenance windows, pre/post checks, rollback procedures

Python scripting for operational automation - able to read, modify, and write scripts that interact with network devices via SSH/API

Understanding of AAA/RADIUS authentication flows and troubleshooting

WiFi or wireless operations experience - controller management, AP provisioning, zone architecture

Incident response - comfortable leading troubleshooting bridges and performing root cause analysis under pressure

Experience reviewing and approving others' work - you've been the technical gate for a team before

Strongly Preferred

Experience with Ruckus vSZ controllers (SmartZone platform)

Experience with Nokia SR-series routers (SROS CLI, service configuration)

Ansible for network automation

Splunk for log analysis and alert creation

ITIL change management in a large enterprise

Git workflow (GitLab, branching, CI pipelines)

Understanding of BGP, VXLAN, EoGRE, IPsec in subscriber traffic environments

CCIE, JNCIE, or equivalent expert-level certification

Prior experience at a cable operator or large ISP

What Success Looks Like (First 90 Days)

1. Independently execute a firmware upgrade campaign (MOP through post-change report) on your assigned platform

2. Serve as technical approver for at least one change type - Tier 2 engineers are bringing work to you

3. Identify and remediate a compliance gap in your domain

4. Build or improve at least one automation script that reduces manual effort

5. Complete on-call rotation handling issues in your domain independently

6. Earn the trust of the team through competence, energy, and collaboration

Work Environment

Schedule: Standard business hours + overnight/weekend maintenance windows (rotating, ~2-3 per month)

On-call: Rotating page coverage

Team size: ~12 engineers + contractors across operations, automation, and NOC enablement

Culture: Direct communication, ownership mentality, process discipline, continuous improvement. We build our own tools, enforce our own standards, and hold each other accountable.

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