Director, Network Engineering & Communications

Job Profile:

Job Family:

Time Type:

Apply before 11:59 PM Arizona time the day before the posted End Date.

Minimum Qualifications:

Job Description:

Enterprise Technology is seeking a Director, Network Engineering & Communications to lead the strategy and operations behind the campus network, voice technologies, and Arizona’s regional network the Sun Corridor Network (SCN).

Reporting to the Executive Director, the Director, Network Engineering & Communications acts as the primary technical manager for the network at one of the largest and most innovative university communities in the country and to provide technical leadership for the Sun Corridor Network, Arizona's statewide research and education network. This is a rare opportunity to build a unified technical organization, bringing network engineering, unified communications/telephony, and research and education networking under one roof and to shape how ASU and Arizona's research community connect for years to come.

As with all members of the Enterprise Technology team, this role carries core responsibilities, including fostering a sense of belonging and cultivating a culture that is relational, visionary, and empowering. With a strong emphasis on authenticity and compassion, this position is dedicated to embodying and advancing ourculture. 

Salary Range: $145,000 - $165,000 per year; DOE

Essential Duties:

Key Duties & Responsibilities:

Strategic Leadership & Planning

• Develop and execute long-term strategy for ASU's campus network infrastructure, including wired & wireless networking and voice/unified communications systems along with Sun Corridor Network (SCN), Arizona’s research & education network.
• Serve as the single point of accountability for cross-domain technical strategy and roadmap execution across Network Engineering, Voice Communications, and SCN.
• Represent Intelligent Infrastructure engineering priorities in ET-wide planning and leadership forums; translate enterprise strategy into team-level standards, tooling decisions, and operational practice.
• Lead modernization initiatives across network, cabling, voice/UC platforms, and SCN including convergence of standards and tools that today operate independently across the teams.

Network Engineering & Sun Corridor Network (SCN)

• Oversee architecture, design, and operational support for enterprise wired and wireless networks, core network, provider network, and border/data center firewall services.
• Ensure NOC practices, monitoring, and incident response are consistent and coordinated across network and voice/UC domains.
• Oversee network security posture in coordination with ET Security teams, including access control and video surveillance system integration where applicable.

Voice / Unified Communications & Telephony

• Own the enterprise voice and unified communications strategy, including telephone systems, voicemail, VoIP, SIP trunking, video conferencing, and cloud-based UC/UCaaS platforms.
• Ensure E911 compliance and accurate location data for VoIP and remote-worker telephony across all campuses and locations, in accordance with applicable regulations.
• Direct planning for telephony system upgrades, migrations, and lifecycle replacement, including integration with contact center and collaboration tools used across the university.
• Ensure voice/UC systems are appropriately represented in disaster recovery and business continuity planning, including redundancy for outages affecting telephony services.

Research & Education Networking — Sun Corridor Network

• Provide technical leadership and direction for the Sun Corridor Network, Arizona's tri-university research and education network connecting ASU, Northern Arizona University, and the University of Arizona to Internet2 and the national research and education community.
• Represent ASU's technical interests to the Sun Corridor Network Technical Committee and coordinate with NAU and UA technical counterparts on network architecture, capacity planning, and service delivery.
• Oversee the technical team responsible for day-to-day engineering and operations of the Sun Corridor Network's backbone infrastructure, including connections to Internet2 and community anchor institutions (K-12 schools, community colleges, libraries, and museums) across Arizona.
• Align Sun Corridor Network's research and education networking strategy and roadmap with ASU's broader network and infrastructure strategy.

Program, Vendor & Budget Management

• Provide input into the combined operating budget across Network Engineering, Voice Communications, SCN, and Sun Corridor Network functions.
• Develop technical RFP specifications, lead vendor selection, and participate in contract negotiations for network, telephony/UC, and research/education networking systems and services.
• Participate in vendor relationship management and service agreements for network, voice, and research/education networking infrastructure, ensuring cost-effective, high-quality service delivery.

AI / Digital Resource Strategy

• Set the strategy for AI-assisted and automated tooling across Network Engineering, Voice Communications, and the SCN — for example, standardizing on shared monitoring, ticketing, or NOC tooling with AI-assisted triage and diagnostics.
• Own governance of AI-assisted operations across these teams to ensure consistent, secure adoption aligned with ET's broader technology direction.

People Leadership

• Lead a multidisciplinary engineering organization spanning network, voice/UC, and research/education networking provider disciplines; hire, develop, mentor, and evaluate managers and technical leads across the combined organization.
• Build succession and bench strength across the combined organization, reducing single-point-of-failure risk.
• Foster collaboration across campus partners, faculty, researchers, and administrative units, as well as NAU and UA technical counterparts, to understand and meet evolving network and communications needs.
• Leverage AI in routine tasks and contribute ideas for using AI to improve the unit’s efficiency and overall performance.
• Take responsibility for fostering a positive culture, upholding organizational values, and championing engagement in all its forms.
• Collaborate across teams and actively participate in ET/ASU events and programs.

Supervisory Responsibility

This position directly supervises managers and/or technical leads for ET Network Engineering, Enterprise Voice Communications, and the Sun Corridor Network technical team, and indirectly supervises departmental staff within those teams. Reports to the Executive Director, Intelligent Infrastructure.

Desired Qualifications:

• Demonstrated ability to model empathy, compassion, and emotional intelligence.
• Experience in a values-driven organization with a strong commitment to inclusion and belonging.
• Ability to cultivate a psychologically safe environment where all team members can thrive.
• Capacity to inspire and drive meaningful change in individual, institutional, and corporate behaviors to support a more sustainable environment.
• Commitment to leading by example through effective communication, active participation, and advocacy for the institution’s sustainability programs.
• Demonstrated experience leading or closely partnering across multiple technical domains — enterprise network infrastructure, voice/UC or telephony, and provider network infrastructure — rather than deep expertise in a single discipline alone.
• Experience managing complex, multi-vendor network or telecommunications infrastructure projects, including budget oversight, RFP development, and vendor contract negotiation.
• Experience with, or working knowledge of, research and education (R&E) networking — including regional/state R&E networks, Internet2, or similar multi-institutional network consortia — strongly preferred given this role's oversight of the Sun Corridor Network.
• Higher education or large multi-site enterprise experience preferred.
• Strong working knowledge of enterprise network architecture (wired, wireless, firewall, access control, provider).
• Understanding of E911 requirements and regulatory compliance obligations for voice systems in a multi-campus environment.
• Working knowledge of research and education networking architecture and governance, including multi-institutional backbone networks and connectivity to Internet2.
• Proven program- and portfolio-level governance skills: budget ownership, vendor management, and prioritization across concurrent, competing initiatives.
• Excellent communication skills, with the ability to represent complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences, including external institutional partners, and at the leadership level.

Working Environment:

• Activities primarily take place in a standard, climate-controlled office environment and may involve extended periods of sitting, standing, or moving between office spaces.
• This role involves regular use of a computer (desktop and/or laptop), including a keyboard and mouse.
• Required to stand for varying lengths of time and walk moderate distances to perform work.

Cover letter requirements: Please address your experience leading multiple technical domains and\or experience in the R&E ecosystem.

Primary Location: Tempe, Arizona

Department Statement: Enterprise Technology (ET) embraces its role as both an enabler and catalyst for advancing the vision and work of the New American University.  We are a values-driven organization.  Our commitments are reflected in all of the work we do in pursuit of operational excellence, the experience and delight of our community, and our strategic and innovation initiatives. Applicants must be eligible to work in the United States.

Join the team that sparks human-centered innovation

ET is a rapidly reconfigurable and entrepreneurial organization at ASU that prioritizes and executes to meet the needs of our community of learners, faculty, researchers and staff. Our work emphasizes autonomy, flexibility and distributed decision-making to leverage the strengths of individuals. Together, we embrace a culture that nurtures, engages and embraces many voices with a shared lens of positive community impact and expanded opportunities for collaboration.

Why join us?

Mission oriented. Everything we do is to advance ASU’s charter -- measuring who we include and how they succeed. We are staunch champions of learner success and put people first.

Flexibility. Our flexible work environment allows employees to explore opportunities with their supervisor beyond the traditional work schedule. Opportunities include hybrid work where staff are in person three days per week.

Culture forward. We embrace a Positive Core culture: Belonging, Relational, Authentic, Visionary and Empowered. 

Scale of impact. Our work changes the world. With 200k+ learners, faculty, researchers and staff, working with ET means you have the capacity to improve many lives and entire communities.

World-class, low cost education. Our professional development is built in! ET encourages staff to seek additional certificates and degrees via ASU’s top ranked programs with major tuition breaks.

Exposure to industry giants. ET partners with Amazon, Apple, Arista, Cox, Verizon, Salesforce, Alteryx and a diversity of technology companies to enhance our innovations and deepen their impact.

Driving Requirement:

Location:

Funding:

Instructions to Apply:

Current employees, student workers seeking staff opportunities, and students applying for student worker positions must apply directly through the Workday Jobs Hub.

To be considered, your application must include all of the following attachments:

• Cover letter
• Resume or CV

Multiple documents may be uploaded in the attachments section. Alternatively, applicants may combine all required materials into a single PDF for submission. Please ensure uploaded documents are clearly labeled and include your name.

Please ensure your resume includes all employment information in month and year format, for example 6/04 to 8/14, along with job title, job duties, and employer name for each position. Your resume should clearly demonstrate how your experience and background meet the minimum and desired qualifications for this position. Incomplete applications or missing required materials may not be considered.

Important: Do not withdraw your application to make edits. Once an application is withdrawn, it cannot be edited, reactivated, or replaced with a new submission. If you have questions or need assistance, please contact The Office of Human Resources Talent Acquisition before the posting close date.

Graduate Assistant, Intern and part-time positions are counted as half time for experience equivalency, meaning one year equals six months of experience.

Only electronic applications will be accepted for this position. By submitting an application, you confirm that the information provided is accurate and complete.

ASU Statement:

Arizona State University is a new model for American higher education, an unprecedented combination of academic excellence, entrepreneurial energy and broad access. This New American University is a single, unified institution comprising four differentiated campuses positively impacting the economic, social, cultural and environmental health of the communities it serves. Its research is inspired by real world application blurring the boundaries that traditionally separate academic disciplines. ASU serves more than 100,000 students in metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona, the nation's fifth largest city. ASU champions inclusive excellence, and welcomes students from all fifty states and more than one hundred nations across the globe.

ASU is a tobacco-free university. For details visit https://wellness.asu.edu/explore-wellness/body/alcohol-and-drugs/tobacco

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, protected veteran status, or any other basis protected by law.

Notice of Availability of the ASU Annual Security and Fire Safety Report:

In compliance with federal law, ASU prepares an annual report on campus security and fire safety programs and resources. ASU’s Annual Security and Fire Safety Report is available online at https://www.asu.edu/police/PDFs/ASU-Clery-Report.pdf. You may request a hard copy of the report by contacting the ASU Police Department at 480-965-3456.

Relocation Assistance – For information about schools, housing child resources, neighborhoods, hospitals, community events, and taxes, visit https://cfo.asu.edu/az-resources.

ASU’s comprehensive benefits package is a key part of your total compensation. Visit the ASU Compensation Estimator

Employment Verification Statement:

ASU conducts pre-employment screening which may include verification of work history, academic credentials, licenses, and certifications.

Background Check Statement:

ASU conducts pre-employment screening for all positions which includes a criminal background check, verification of work history, academic credentials, licenses, and certifications. Employment is contingent upon successful passing of the background check.

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