Job Purpose: The Network & Network Security Lead will play a major role in ensuring the integrity, performance, and security of the organization s networking environment. This role goes beyond operations, demanding an expert-level understanding of complex network and security architectures, a hands-on ability to troubleshoot high-impact issues, and the capability to lead cross-functional teams in delivering secure and resilient infrastructure for a regulated financial environment.

Key Responsibilities & Duties:

Architecture & Design Leadership: Lead the design and evolution of enterprise network and security architecture aligned with business and compliance requirements. Ensure integration of network security principles in all architectural decisions. Collaborate with the design & architect team for the new project or new initiative

Advanced Troubleshooting & Problem Resolution: Own and resolve high-severity incidents by diving deep into Layer 1 7 issues spanning networking, firewalls, routing, DNS, proxies, and cloud networking. Lead root cause analysis and implement long-term preventive measures.

Multiskilling & Cross-Functional Expertise: Provide mentorship across routing, switching, firewalls (NGFW), load balancers, VPNs, SD-WAN, ACI, SD-Access, and network access control (NAC). Encourage skill development across multiple technology domains within the team.

Security Posture & Threat Management: Implement and maintain network segmentation, access control, and zero-trust strategies. Collaborate with the cross-departmental teams on incident response and threat mitigation.

Operations Oversight & Optimization: Oversee the performance, availability, and efficiency of the network and its security services. Develop and enforce network operations procedures, ensuring compliance with industry and regulatory standards.

Project Leadership: Lead critical infrastructure projects, including migrations, upgrades, and partner connectivity. Coordinate cross-departmentally to ensure secure rollout of new services and systems.

Vendor & Contract Management: Evaluate, select, and manage vendors and service providers. Ensure SLA compliance and conduct regular performance reviews.

Compliance & Audit Readiness: Maintain documentation and policies to meet the requirements of financial sector audits and compliance checks (e.g., PCI-DSS, ISO 27001).

Monitoring & Incident Detection: Experience with proactive monitoring for performance and threats using tools like SIEM, NMS, and flow analysis. Define thresholds, alerts, and escalation workflows for operational and security incidents.

Team Development: Provide coaching, conduct regular performance reviews, and build development plans for team members. Foster a culture of accountability, ownership, and continuous learning.

Documentation: Strong experience using documentation tools (Microsoft Office 365, Visio, Lucid chart). Ensure all documentation aligns with compliance, audit, and organization standards. Strong presentation skills.

Skills & Qualifications:

• Typically, 7+ years of relevant work experience in industry, with a minimum of 3 years in a similar role
• Deep hands-on expertise in enterprise networking, SDN solutions, network security, and firewall administration (Cisco, Aruba, Fortinet, Palo Alto, etc.).
• Full-stack network knowledge (routing, switching, DNS, VPN, proxies, load balancers, SD-WAN, NAC, Wi-Fi, ACI, SD-Access).
• Strong experience designing and managing secure, scalable, and high-performance networks.
• Proficient in troubleshooting complex multi-vendor, multi-layer issues under pressure.
• Understanding of secure cloud networking (Azure/AWS) and hybrid environments.
• Familiar with compliance frameworks such as Cybersecurity Framework, NCA, ISO 27001, NIST.

Education & Certifications:

• Bachelor s or master s degree in computer science, Network Engineering, or a related field.
• Preferred certifications: Cisco CCIE (DC, Enterprise, Security) preferred Enterprise.
• CISSP / CISM (a plus for security leadership)
• Cloud certifications (AWS/Azure Network Specialty)

Working Conditions:

• Based in Saudi Arabia with on-site visits to data centers and site offices.
• Availability for critical incidents and changes outside of normal working hours.
• Hybrid collaboration with global teams, regulators, and auditors.

Platform Proficiency (Required)

• SolarWinds NPM (performance monitoring), NTA (traffic analysis), NCM (configuration governance golden baselines, drift detection, scheduled backups, rollback)
• Dynatrace with Davis AI for full-stack observability and AIOps-driven root cause analysis
• Bridge AIOps for event correlation and alert noise reduction
• ServiceNow as the system of record for all ITSM workflows (incidents, changes, CMDB, approval gates)
• Palo Alto NGFW and Cisco ASA/FTD for firewall administration
• Cisco ISE for Network Access Control (posture, guest, BYOD workflows)
• Cisco SD-WAN (controller-based) with MPLS underlay across all sites
• Citrix NetScaler for load balancing (diagnostic-first approach)

Delivery Model Responsibilities

• Lead the on-site KSA network team (Network Tower Lead/Architect + L3 engineer) while overseeing 24 7 offshore NOC teams (Egypt & India) responsible for monitoring, incident response, and change execution.
• Coordinate with ISPs for MPLS/Internet underlay circuit management.
• Ensure bilingual (Arabic and English) communication across all network touchpoints.

Network Automation Oversight

• Own the delivery of network automation use cases: WAN degradation diagnostics (auto-collect interface counters, path stats)
• Port flap triage (approval-gated port bounce via ServiceNow)
• AP recovery and client rebalancing (controller-based recovery, RF adjustment)
• Configuration drift detection and restore (NCM golden baselines)
• BGP neighbor failure diagnostics (routing state collection, ISP escalation)
• Pre-meeting wireless readiness validation for VIP areas
• Automation pattern: SolarWinds events ServiceNow workflows Ansible playbooks

Desired Candidate Profile

Skills & Qualifications:

• Typically, 7+ years of relevant work experience in industry, with a minimum of 3 years in a similar role
• Deep hands-on expertise in enterprise networking, SDN solutions, network security, and firewall administration (Cisco, Aruba, Fortinet, Palo Alto, etc.).
• Full-stack network knowledge (routing, switching, DNS, VPN, proxies, load balancers, SD-WAN, NAC, Wi-Fi, ACI, SD-Access).
• Strong experience designing and managing secure, scalable, and high-performance networks.
• Proficient in troubleshooting complex multi-vendor, multi-layer issues under pressure.
• Understanding of secure cloud networking (Azure/AWS) and hybrid environments.
• Familiar with compliance frameworks such as Cybersecurity Framework, NCA, ISO 27001, NIST.

Education & Certifications:

• Bachelor s or master s degree in computer science, Network Engineering, or a related field.
• Preferred certifications: Cisco CCIE (DC, Enterprise, Security) preferred Enterprise.
• CISSP / CISM (a plus for security leadership)
• Cloud certifications (AWS/Azure Network Specialty)