Network Engineer, Expert

Summary

CHS has an exciting opportunity within the Information Technology group. We are seeking an expert level Network Engineer to provide advanced technical leadership across the enterprise core network, cloud connectivity, and WAN in a complex, multi-site environment. This role goes beyond day-to-day operational support. It focuses on establishing engineering standards, architecture patterns, and repeatable practices that strengthen network reliability and reduce dependency on any single individual. This expert Network Engineer partners with peer technical leaders and cross-functional IT teams to raise the engineering bar, improve prioritization, and make tradeoffs visible. The goal is a secure, scalable, and highly available network for CHS.

To be considered for this position, qualified candidates must currently reside in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metro area to work a hybrid structure (3+ days per week) in the corporate office located in Inver Grove Heights, MN.

Responsibilities

Technical Leadership and Engineering Judgment

• Serve as a hands-on technical leader who labs, proves, automates, and implements complex network solutions with strong supporting design documentation.
• Apply strong engineering judgment to resolve ambiguity and make sound technical recommendations on priorities, standards, and tradeoffs.
• Assist the team and leadership to focus on what matters most by negotiating scope and priorities and making tradeoffs visible.
• Communicate constructively when work should be deferred or sequenced, including what would need to change to take it on.
• Identify systemic operational issues, such as recurring manual processes, and drive improvements through standards, automation and process improvements.
• Provide credible, informed feedback to vendors when product limitations affect enterprise outcomes.

Network Reliability and Technical Support

• Provide expert-level engineering and troubleshooting support for the Cisco core network, routing, switching, and enterprise WAN, including SD-WAN.
• Support cloud networking in AWS and Azure, including connectivity patterns and standards.
• Apply network automation skills (Python, APIs, Infrastructure as Code) and hold production automation to a high quality bar.
• Build working depth in Cisco SD-WAN; cross-train and document to provide depth of knowledge across the team.
• Partner with the security, cloud, and operational technology teams on standards and designs.

Incident Response and Service Restoration

• Participate in an on-call rotation approximately once every seven weeks.
• Serve as a technical escalation point for high-severity network incidents, providing hands-on troubleshooting, remediation, and validation.
• Deliver timely, accurate technical updates during active incidents.
• Lead post-incident reviews and drive root-cause and corrective actions into standards, documentation, and automation.
• Partner with the security, cloud, and operational technology teams on incidents and problems.

Standards, Architecture and Continuous Improvement

• Develop and champion network engineering standards, architecture patterns, and WAN and core design standards that reduce reliance on individual subject-matter experts.
• Review significant designs and changes for alignment with standards, and give clear, constructive recommendations to the team and leadership.
• Create and maintain operational documentation, runbooks, and knowledge articles that support long-term operational readiness.
• Drive adoption of repeatable engineering processes that reduce manual work and strengthen institutional knowledge.
• Operate within ITIL-aligned Incident, Request, Change, and Problem Management processes, using ServiceNow or similar ITSM tools to document incidents, requests, root causes, and corrective actions.
• Partner with enterprise architecture to keep designs aligned with strategic direction.

Communication, Collaboration and Engineering Standards

• Raise team capability through standards, architecture patterns, documentation, and operational readiness.
• Build trust with peers, architects, and operations teams by listening to other viewpoints and adapting positions when given new information.
• Engage in constructive dialog with IT leadership and peer technologists to provide well-reasoned recommendations that align with organizational priorities.
• Communicate difficult technical concepts in a way that keeps relationships and momentum intact.
• Promote and uphold a strong safety culture and follow all safety policies.

Minimum Qualifications (required)

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Information Technology Management, or a related field (or equivalent years of work experience, education and training)
• 7+ years of enterprise network engineering experience, including demonstrated ownership of engineering standards, architecture patterns, and process improvement to include:
  • Advanced, hands-on Cisco routing, switching, and core network engineering and troubleshooting
  • Advanced enterprise WAN routing and design experience, including BGP, OSPF, and underlay/overlay concepts
  • AWS or Azure cloud networking experience
  • Working knowledge of network automation (Python, APIs, Infrastructure as Code), with the judgment to distinguish sound production automation from fragile automation

Additional Qualifications

• 10+ years of enterprise network engineering experience, including demonstrated ownership of engineering standards, architecture patterns, and process improvement
• Experience leading technical resolution of major incidents
• Demonstrated ability to establish engineering standards and drive cross-team process improvement
• Collaborative, low-ego communication style, with the confidence to defend technical positions and the curiosity to learn from others
• Ability to negotiate and influence across teams without direct authority
• CCNP Enterprise (or legacy CCNP Routing & Switching), or equivalent demonstrated experience
• Hands-on Cisco SD-WAN experience
• Experience with operational technology (OT) or industrial networking, including IT/OT segmentation and secure connectivity to plant or facility networks
• Azure networking experience and familiarity with cloud management platforms such as Aviatrix
• Working familiarity with firewall and security architecture sufficient to partner with a dedicated firewall team (Palo Alto)
• Experience supporting major incidents or high-severity outage response
• Experience with ITIL-aligned service management frameworks and ServiceNow
• Familiarity with SolarWinds Orion or similar network monitoring tools, and network packet capture analysis

Pre-employment screening is based on the job requirements and industry guidelines and may or may not be required for the position. If required, selected candidates must pass pre-employment screenings to include all or a combination of drug, criminal, motor vehicle check, physical requirements and FMSCA Clearinghouse.