Engineer-Transport IV SONET/DWDM Richardson, TX

Title: Engineer-Transport - IV

Location: Richardson, TX 

Duration: 30-month contract

Job Description

After receiving market-level plans, customer capacity requirements, and internal transport requirements, the Transport Engineer is responsible for the timely creation and action of individual Capacity Creation Requests (CCRs) to initiate U.S. domestic network transport builds across both ULH and OTN Mesh networks.

Responsibilities

• Applicant must have extensive logical (not physical) knowledge of SONET and Long-Distance transport systems.
• Have a strong understanding of the transport network to effectively initiate and engineer network projects.
• Deliver the transport planning team's key strategic business initiatives, including deployment of new network technology and adoption of new inventory and provisioning systems.
• Perform planning, forecasting, and capacity monitoring of LD/ULH transport network infrastructure and equipment on a regular basis.
• Support LD transport capacity requirements required to support the full suite of products and customers, both internal and external.
• Perform capacity research analysis and initiate projects based on customer requirements.
• Coordinate with real estate and central office equipment teams to ensure adequate power, space, and cooling are available to support network growth and expansion.
• Perform detailed equipment engineering for network augments, including developing installation specifications, obtaining approvals, issuing purchase orders, creating diagrams/drawings, and ensuring vendor delivery.
• Ensure all work meets applicable engineering, financial, planning, and operational standards.
• Develop Bills of Material (BOM) and place orders for network equipment, racks, and hardware.
• Define cable requirements, create cable running lists, and order all required cables.
• Manage, input, and update central Network Inventory Databases (ICON, Nautilus, CoFEE, CCP) to reflect new builds, adds, and decommissions.
• Develop collaborative working relationships with stakeholders and subject matter experts to enable successful LD/ULH transport implementation.
• Provide detailed diversity analysis for internal and external groups to support future customer orders, mesh network growth, and converged core data networks.
• Create diversification projects based on user group requirements.
• Perform wavelength rearrangements as needed to reduce stranded network capacity.
• Support multi-year transport capacity forecasts and network builds to determine capital funding requirements, including business cases and justifications.
• Coordinate with GTNOC and provide ad-hoc restoration for priority systems during fiber cable outages.
• Coordinate with lease contracts, capital planning, engineering, project management, operations/RCAT, and other stakeholders to communicate network build plans and obtain approvals.
• Understand project dependencies including space, power, fiber, and diversity, and evaluate their impact on planned projects.
• Identify and work with appropriate stakeholders to resolve issues and eliminate performance roadblocks.
• Perform and provide data analysis, reports, and presentations for transport planning stakeholders.
• Demonstrate leadership, self-motivation, and strong team orientation.
• Train and mentor junior engineers.
• Be flexible with work schedules, including evenings, weekends, and on-call support.
• Participate in regular team meetings and conference calls for assigned projects.
• Ability to commute locally and attend off-site stakeholder meetings as needed (approximately 15% travel per month).

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in Engineering.
• 5–10 years of progressive technical experience designing SONET and Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) transport systems.
• Experience creating complex system diagrams using Microsoft Visio.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to quickly learn the role, absorb new concepts, and eventually train others.
• Natural leadership ability.
• Strong organizational and time-management skills.
• Self-starter with the ability to meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment.

Required Skills

• Strong working knowledge of Microsoft Office.
• Excellent verbal, written, analytical, and communication skills.
• Ability to work collaboratively, adapt to changing priorities, and meet customer deadlines.
• Experience collecting and consolidating information from multiple tools, systems, or platforms into a single database or repository.

Preferred Qualifications

• Familiarity with ICON, CCP, BGW, NAUTILUS, CANVAS, TCOMS, or nSAP.