Cisco Network Implementation Engineer

Contract: Network Implementation Engineer

Start Date: ASAP

Duration: 12 months

Location: Hybrid - 2 days on site in London each week - Must be flexible. Some out of hours and weekend work required during the contract

Rate: £375- £400 a day (Deemed Inside IR35 via Umbrella)

Reference: 20481

Must have recent financial services experience

A major refresh and refurbishment programme is underway across a 30-floor head office campus in London, home to a live trading floor and other critical business functions. We are seeking three experienced Network Engineers to support design, implementation and delivery of campus network changes. This is a delivery and project-based role, not a support or operational one. We need engineers who are used to delivering:

• Planning, preparing and driving project work end to end
• Instructing and coordinating other engineers or contractors
• Physically delivering, installing and migrating kit, rather than fixing or maintaining existing infrastructure

Candidates should be comfortable operating in a highly regulated, large enterprise environment with strict change controls, working alongside cabling design, audio-visual, security, construction and end user testing teams.

Programme Scope:

• Reviewing and relocating main equipment rooms across the building
• Refreshing floors as they are decommissioned, refurbished and brought back into service
• Migrating services to temporary core/distribution and ultimately to the final core/distribution design
• Deploying and configuring new network kit as floors and equipment rooms become available, including delivering kit to site, instructing junior engineers/contractors, and migrating and refreshing existing switches
• Refreshing wireless infrastructure across multiple generations of Wi-Fi deployed across the estate, including managing user Wi-Fi through construction and handover phases and coordinating closely with construction teams on the practical nuances this creates
• Building network infrastructure to the standard expected in live operations, with security requirements designed in from the outset rather than retrofitted
• Validating network functionality jointly with cabling, AV, physical security and end user testing teams

Technical Requirements

Core - Essential:

• Cisco Catalyst switching - 6500, 4500 and 9410 platforms
• Cisco wireless access points across multiple generations - 3800 series through to 9130 series
• Cisco wireless controllers - 5520, 5508 and 9800 series
• Cisco Catalyst Centre and Cisco Prime Infrastructure
• Strong, Wi-Fi savvy campus wireless experience - this is a key differentiator for this programme
• Recent, hands-on experience deploying and refreshing network infrastructure in a live campus environment
• Experience deploying data centre-grade network devices
• Campus edge design experience
• Heavy use of BGP and Layer 3 routing domains in a campus context

Supplementary - Desirable:

• General awareness of firewalls in a campus context (deep firewall engineering not required)
• Basic multicast configuration - sufficient for use cases such as office screens/digital signage
• Voice VLAN configuration to switchport level (no end-to-end voice engineering required)

Delivery & Project Skills:

• Demonstrable large enterprise experience - this is not a support-led or operational role
• A project-based mindset with a track record of out-of-the-box implementation work, not BAU support or fault-fixing
• Strong project delivery skills - planning, preparing and driving network workstreams end to end
• Comfortable delivering and physically installing kit, instructing and directing other engineers or contractors, and carrying out switch migrations and refreshes
• Ability to guide project managers through logical sequencing of network activity
• Proactive in engaging cabling, AV, security, construction and end user teams to deliver to plan
• Comfortable producing and following templated, repeatable designs at scale