Senior Network Engineer (Service Provider)

About Synextra

We're not your typical MSP. As a second-generation Managed Service Provider (MSP) born from the expertise of industry veterans, we're crafting a new narrative in the UK tech scene.

Our team, akin to the Navy SEALs of the tech world, consists of elite operators who've excelled in larger MSP environments but yearned for something more. At Synextra, we've spent 10 transformative years building a company that's small by design but colossal in impact, guided by a technical leader whose vision is always client-first.

The Technical Support Team are at the centre of everything we do, and we have the exciting challenge of finding the next person to join the team. We care about passion for technology, a natural flair for customer service and a general love of all things ‘Geek’. Working for a fast-growing enterprise cloud provider that provides both fully managed cloud environments and connectivity services.

The Role

We are recruiting a Senior Network Engineer to help run Synextra's production carrier network that connects customers into Microsoft Azure and the wider internet. As part of this we also have a growing SDWAN practice which you will be heavily involved in.

This is real service provider engineering on live, customer-facing infrastructure. To do it well, you will have run a network like this before.

The ideal candidate should also possess in interest in the Azure ecosystem and how to bring those great network engineering practices into customer Azure environments.

Standout Perks (The good stuff)

• Real influence – your technical decisions actually matter
• Azure-first environment – no legacy nonsense holding you back
• Time to do things properly – quality over chaos
• Training & certification support – stay sharp, stay current

Responsibilities

• Operating and troubleshooting the MPLS core: BGP and OSPF across IOS-XR and IOS-XE, leased lines, carrier NNIs and server-estate connectivity, and full-table capacity on our IOS-XR gateways
• Managing Cisco switching across the estate (Catalyst and Nexus).
• Building and managing the FortiGate SD-WAN footprint: SD-WAN, ADVPN and UTP across customer sites.
• Configuring and maintaining FortiGate firewall HA clusters.
• Managing carrier NNI’s and supplier relationships – including provisioning of new customers.
• Taking ownership of network incidents through to resolution and feeding root causes back into permanent fixes
• Designing, documenting and implementing network changes and customer solutions
• Proactive monitoring and capacity planning to keep the network ahead of demand
• Producing internal and customer-facing technical reports
• Completing site visits to data centre locations and customer premises as required
• Participating in the on-call rota

Requirements

Essential

• Proven experience running a live carrier, ISP or service provider network (this is essential, not desirable)
• Cisco routing in production: BGP and OSPF across IOS-XR and IOS-XE
• Cisco switching across Catalyst and Nexus platforms
• FortiGate: SD-WAN, ADVPN, UTP and HA firewall pairs
• Strong firewalling fundamentals and best practice.
• Excellent communication skills, able to articulate complex technical concepts simply to colleagues and customers

Desirable

• VMware NSX-T
• Azure Firewall
• Azure Virtual WAN (vWAN)
• Azure route tables / user-defined routing
• MPLS, Segment Routing and L3VPN at scale
• Cisco (CCNP / CCIE) or Fortinet (NSE / FCSS) certifications

Personal Qualities

• Calm and methodical under pressure, especially during live incidents
• Self-motivated with high personal standards
• A solution-focused mindset that gets to root causes
• Strong customer-service instincts and the confidence to own a problem