Job Information
FirstLight Fiber Managed Services Network Architect in Albany, New York
Position Summary
In the role of Managed Services Network Architect, you will collaborate with cross-functional teams to design and optimize technology solutions that align with FirstLight Fiber’s strategic goals. Your responsibilities will include creating architectural standards, guiding technical decisions, driving innovation, and ensuring that systems and services meet high performance, security, and reliability standards. You will be shaping the future of our technology landscape through thoughtful design, comprehensive planning, testing, and effective collaboration.
Key Responsibilities
- Architectural Design & Strategy
Develop and maintain architectural documentation that addresses immediate technical needs while supporting long-term scalability and flexibility.
Establish and enforce architectural principles, design patterns, and documentation protocols that foster consistency and interoperability.
Stay informed about emerging technologies, evaluating their potential impact and feasibility within FirstLight’s environment.
- Collaboration with Product & Engineering Teams
Work closely with product management and engineering to translate business and product requirements into effective, scalable designs.
Collaborate with operations, and security teams to ensure seamless integration of architectural solutions.
Provide subject-matter expertise to support decision-making around emerging technologies, frameworks, and third-party solutions.
- Systems Integration & Implementation
Design and oversee the integration of complex systems, services, and applications to ensure interoperability and alignment with architectural standards.
Provide escalation and assistance in guiding projects from inception to production, ensuring that designs are properly implemented, tested, and optimized for performance.
Maintain comprehensive documentation—diagrams, data flowcharts, and architecture roadmaps.
- Performance Optimization & Troubleshooting
Define key performance indicators for systems and processes, setting up monitoring strategies to detect bottlenecks and inefficiencies.
Conduct regular reviews of existing architectures, identifying areas for enhancement or refactoring to improve reliability and cost-effectiveness.
Collaborate with engineering and operations teams to resolve critical issues, performing root-cause analysis and recommending long-term solutions.
- Security, Compliance & Risk Management
Integrate security best practices at every stage of design, ensuring confidentiality, integrity, and availability of systems and data.
Stay updated on relevant industry regulations and standards, incorporating them into design principles and documentation.
Evaluate potential vulnerabilities or architectural gaps, proposing mitigation strategies to maintain robust and secure systems.
- Vendor & Stakeholder Management
Assess equipment, services, and solutions for technical fit, cost-effectiveness, and alignment with FirstLight Fiber standards.
Maintain productive relationships with key vendors and providers, ensuring service-level agreements (SLAs) and deliverables are met.
Collaborate with finance and leadership to manage operational and capital expenditures, optimizing costs while upholding architectural and operational integrity.
- Leadership & Mentorship
Offer direction and support to junior architects, developers, and engineers, fostering a culture of learning and innovation.
Conduct training sessions, workshops, and design reviews to promote best practices and professional development across the organization.
Advocate for architectural integrity and forward-thinking solutions, ensuring technology initiatives align with broader objectives.
- Sales Engineering support
Support Sales Engineering team pre-sale efforts by reviewing complex opportunities to determine viability and costing as requested through established review processes.
Provide regular technology and network status updates to the Sales Engineering team to ensure they understand operational capabilities and limitations.
Develop tools and processes for the Sales Engineering team to promote autonomy regarding product choices and costing for business case development.
- Managed Services functionality validation specifics
Provide architectural responsibility and feature functionality validation for vendor agnostic SD-WAN platforms including Application and Flow Visibility, QoS / Traffic Shaping, Application Aware Routing, Dynamic Routing Capabilities, Multi-cloud support, Security / SASE Capabilities, Voice Support, Multigigabit Capabilities, Scalability and Operational Simplicity
Provide architectural responsibility and feature functionality validation for vendor agnostic Security / SASE platforms including Multitenancy Support, Firewall as a Service, Intrusion Protection System (IPS), Malware Threat Protection, SSL Decryption, Zero Trust Network Access, Secure Web Gateway Inspection, Remote Access VPN, VPN site-to-site Tunnels, Dynamic Routing Protocols and Network Address Translation (NAT)
Provide architectural responsibility for and feature functionality validation for vendor agnostic switching and wireless platforms including Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6, Radios, Antennas & Coverage, IoT Ready, Security, Captive Portals, Guest Access, Traffic Shaping, and device standard for Indoor, Outdoor & Hospitality Models.
- Managed Services product validation and platform assessment
Coordinate closely with the FirstLight Product Management team and other key stakeholders to thoroughly evaluate existing Managed Services offerings, ensuring that each product aligns with industry best practices and FirstLight’s overarching network architecture.
Validate product definitions, roles, and responsibilities to confirm both technical viability and strategic fit. Leverage market insights and evolving customer needs to identify additional product opportunities, ranging from enhancements and feature expansions to entirely new solutions.
Maintain a strong focus on operational efficiencies, service quality, and continuous innovation within the Managed Services portfolio.
Ongoing platform assessment, vendor validation and future growth evaluation including upgrading and testing new major software releases and patches, testing new device models, integration of emerging technologies (i.e. AI), throughput benchmark testing, logging capabilities, alerting capabilities, general reporting, monitoring traffic & performance issues, multi-tenancy support and platform management (cloud vs on-premises).
Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree in Network Engineering, Information Technology, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Telecommunications, or related field; or equivalent professional experience.
Strong understanding of enterprise routing and switching technologies including BGP, OSPF, VLANs, VRFs, NAT, and high-availability designs.
Firsthand experience supporting SD-WAN and/or SASE platforms from major vendors such as Fortinet, Cisco, VMware, or Palo Alto
Working knowledge of next-generation firewall technologies including policy management, threat inspection, SSL inspection, and network segmentation.
Experience configuring and troubleshooting VPN technologies including IPSEC site-to-site and remote access solutions.
Familiarity with network access control and identity-based networking such as Cisco ISE, RADIUS, TACACS+, and 802.1X authentication.
Understanding network monitoring, alerting, and troubleshooting methodologies using SNMP, NetFlow, logging platforms, and performance monitoring tools.
Strong documentation, troubleshooting, and communication skills.
Industry certifications such as CCNA/CCNP, Fortinet NSE, PCNSE, or equivalent is desired.
Experience
Minimum 6+ years of experience supporting or engineering enterprise network environments.
Experience managing customer-facing network infrastructure in a managed services, MSP, CLEC, or enterprise IT environment.
Demonstrated experience supporting firewalls, SD-WAN deployments, VPN connectivity, and secure remote access solutions in production environments.
Experience supporting hybrid WAN and cloud-connected enterprise networks.
Exposure to VoIP, SIP, and unified communications or voice engineering experience is a plus.