The Infrastructure Unit reports to the Chief Information Officer. This unit serves a key role in university leadership, working closely with senior administration, academic leaders, and the campus community to develop Strategic campus infrastructure plans and comprehensive information security strategy.

The Assistant Director of Infrastructure Networks reports to the Director of Infrastructure and serves as a key member of the Network team working closely with Information Technology Services (ITS) leadership and working closely with senior administration, academic leaders, and the campus community as needed. The Assistant Director is an advocate for North Carolina Central University's overall network infrastructure inclusive of advanced networking, communications, cabling, network security, and research infrastructure. This position assists with developing network plans and budgets. The candidate must be knowledgeable of enterprise networks, cloud networking, virtualization, enterprise communications, and a variety of emerging technologies. The position also works directly with the Information Security department in providing access management and data security. The complexity of this position requires a leadership approach that is engaging, innovative, and collaborative, with a sophisticated ability to work with other leaders to set the best balance between infrastructure, security strategies, and other priorities at the campus level.

* The candidate should possess the ability to work with other IT and non-IT leaders and to set the best balance between operational, project, and planning priorities for the network team.

* Growing leadership and responsibility in the network infrastructure and cloud technologies are required.

* Experience with network/virtualization upgrades, project management, policies, and procedures developed in a complex higher education environment is highly desirable.

* Experience in managing and architecting the use of Palo Alto Network and Cisco firewall.

* The position requires an intelligent, articulate, consensus-building, and persuasive leader who can work effectively with other IT leaders, technical teams, faculty, staff, and the campus community.

* The ability to communicate information-related concepts to a broad range of technical and non-technical staff.

* The ability to exhibit maturity, reliability, composure, and stability under pressure as required for handling on-the-job challenges is essential.

* Must be able to give and receive constructive criticism and feedback from the team and leadership.

* Must have experience using enterprise networks and virtual infrastructure in both on-premises and cloud implementations.

* Must have a working knowledge of securing a network, incident response, and infrastructure redundancy in a higher education environment.

* Must have experience in multiple areas of networking technologies including but not limited to Cisco and Palo Alto firewalls, VMware networking, AWS/Azure networks, NAC, network management, and monitoring.

* Must have knowledge of VRFs and Cisco enterprise wireless networks.

* Must have a working knowledge of Cisco ISE, DNA center, Prime Infrastructure

* Must have a working knowledge of renewing Cisco licensing and support

* Working knowledge and experience with assisting ITS security in the policy and regulatory environment of information security, particularly in higher education, is highly desirable.

Bachelors or master's degree in computer science, information systems, business administration or related field, or equivalent work experience.
* Ten or more years of progressive experience in IT
* Three or more years of leadership responsibilities
* Preferably five or more years of experience in a similar role in higher education.
* Demonstrated experience in project management, infrastructure design and staff development
* Preferably proven experience or demonstrated capability in leading IT transformational initiatives in complex and dynamic environments

N/A

North Carolina Central University is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, color, disability, gender, gender expression, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, or status as a protected veteran.

Assist with the development of the strategy for services and the technical roadmap for campus infrastructure, cloud infrastructure, virtualized systems, and enterprise collaboration. Assist in the design of the campus network, fiber/cable infrastructure and enterprise collaboration. Participate in the strategic direction and oversight for the design, development, operation, and support of IT Infrastructure that fulfill the needs of the business, including the full life cycle of technical architecture, network engineering, infrastructure operations, and IT service support. Work with the IT Systems and Security teams in the review, ongoing management, and support as it relates to the security of university technology systems and data. Partner with IT Systems and Security teams to ensure that system networking services are aligned with, support, and follow campus policies and standards. Inform infrastructure strategy and standards. Develop infrastructure network standards for data center and cloud technologies.

Use critical thinking and problem-solving to troubleshoot, perform and delegate tasks. Stays abreast of information technology issues including regulatory changes affecting higher education at the state and national level, participates in emerging technology discussions, and communicates with campus regularly about those topic. Ensure professional development and growth opportunities for the network team. Supervise and develop the network team in areas of collaboration, networking, firewalling, cloud, and other areas as needed.

Examine the impacts of new technologies on North Carolina Central University's overall information technology infrastructure. Establish processes to review the implementation of new technologies. Stay abreast of emerging technologies and act as the primary contact for assessing enterprise-level infrastructure needs and developing plans accordingly.