About the Firm

As a global law firm our work spans jurisdictions, cultures, and languages – and so do our people.

Our culture is collaborative and inclusive — where diverse perspectives are recognised and valued. Where performing to your highest ability, unlocks equal access to opportunities to learn, thrive and grow. 

We combine deep legal expertise and commercial intelligence to grow, transform, protect, and defend our clients' businesses, across every critical moment.

We operate in the sectors and regions that matter to our clients. With forward-thinking insights and innovative, tech-enabled solutions that combine deep knowledge of their sectors and markets.

You’ll build connections and work with colleagues as one global team. You’ll unlock opportunities for clients, across borders, cultures, legal and commercial disciplines.

Join us to work with colleagues as one global team – empowering each other to be exceptional and create advantage for our clients.

What we offer including our broad range of benefits and working environment

When you join Clifford Chance, you will have access to a broad range of benefits to support you across many aspects of your personal and professional life including financial, wellbeing, lifestyle, and family friendly benefits. For more information on what we offer specifically in Newcastle, please visit our What We Offer page on our career site. 

The role

The Senior Network Engineer is a technical expert responsible for the design, implementation and support of enterprise-scale network infrastructure, ensuring secure, stable and scalable services across the organisation.

You will work within the Networks Engineering team as part of Global IT Operations, collaborating with Network Operations, Infrastructure Services and stakeholders across regions.

What you will be responsible for

The Network Engineer is responsible for ensuring that defined network and security standards are consistently implemented and maintained across the organisation.

The role contributes to technical design and implementation activities to ensure the reliable, secure, and efficient operation of the network infrastructure throughout its full lifecycle.

In addition, Network Engineers provide technical support to the offshore Network Operations. The role acts as a technical escalation point for the offshore team, particularly during critical or high-severity incidents.

Key Responsibilities

• Ensure network and security standards are implemented and adhered to across all environments.
• Deliver technical design, implementation, and lifecycle management of network infrastructure.
• Maintain the stability, performance, and security of the enterprise network.
• Act as the escalation point for complex and critical network/security incidents.
• Support incident response
• Drive continuous improvement of network operations, security posture, and operational processes.
• Participate in the on call Rota for out of hours and weekend support (1 in 3)

Services within remit include, but are not limited to: routing & switching, LAN&WAN, ISE, Wireless, Load Balancing, NGFW, SASE, DNS, ZTNA.

Clifford Chance has a key vision on automation. Capability in this area throughout the full network technology stack is highly desired. As this is a key growth area, an engineer with this skillset would have a high level of influence to help guide, own and mature this capability with the potential for wider influence in the automation space across the department.

What you will do

Design & Engineering

• Define and enforce standards ensuring that they are always implemented and adhered to throughout the global infrastructure.
• Ownership of design and delivery of Network and Network Security projects.
• Produce technical level documentation (HLD, LLD, KBs).
• Identify and correct non-compliance issues.
• Help shape the strategic direction for Network and network security services.
• Help maintain a delivery roadmap for all Network and network security products, with at least a rolling 2-year outlook.
• Support managing the Technology Lifecycle Management for all Network products, reviewing on a bi-annual basis to ensure it remains up to date.
• Support investment planning; including business case, budget preparation and timeline determination.
• Produce accurate bills of materials to support the technical designs including hardware, software and licensing.

How we will support you

From your first day with us, you will have varied opportunities to continuously grow and development your skills and knowledge. From formal training, informal coaching and mentoring through to skills-based and technical training and on the job learning.

Your career experience so far

• You will have at least 10 years' experience of network and network security within a global enterprise scale organisation (5000-50,000 users), with at least 2-3 years working as an engineer in a similar role.
• You will have considerable first-hand experience of defining standards and creating designs, as well as implementing technical solutions to meet the business requirements.
• You will be experienced with providing technical support in a pressurized environment, ideally within legal or banking.
• Ability to effectively communicate with all stakeholders and global colleagues at all levels.

You will have Expert knowledge and experience of the following areas:

• Routing & Switching
• Network Access control
• Wireless LAN Controller & Access Points
• LAN & WAN design
• Load Balancing
• SDWAN
• Meraki

You would ideally have a solid understanding or experience with the following areas:

• QoS (Quality of Service)
• Network Monitoring & Alerting
• TLS
• Unix command line
• API
• NGFW
• SASE/Web Filtering
• DNS
• Azure

Nice to Have

• Network automation (Terraform/Ansible)
• Proficiency in any high-level programming language (i.e. Python)
• Modern Authentication (i.e. SAML, SSO)

Work Pattern & Hybrid Working

Monday to Friday, 09:30-17:30

This role is a hybrid role with the majority of work expected to be performed remotely.

There will be remit to attend the London headquarters on a monthly basis for in person team catch-ups.

The role will initially require more frequent attendance at the London office during an initial induction period, this will then be relaxed to attendance of 2-3 consecutive days per month.

(Occasional requirement to work out of hours including weekends)

Equal opportunities

At Clifford Chance, we forge an inclusive culture, where diverse perspectives are recognised and valued. It’s a culture where everyone has equal access to opportunities to thrive and succeed. We are guided by our values-based Code, which sets high standards of conduct and has a principle focused on being inclusive.

We comply with the law and regulations in every location where we operate and we are committed to delivering fair and equal access to all applicants and employees irrespective of background. This applies across all aspects of employment from recruitment and selection to development, progression, and day-to-day working life.  

Our global network of affinity, faith and support groups are open to all. These communities help to create an environment where everyone at the firm can feel they belong and can reach their full potential.

Find out more about our inclusive culture here.

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