Network - Operations Controller

Network - Operations Controller
Redstone Arsenal
Huntsville, AL

HX5 is an award-winning provider of engineering, research and development, and technical services to clients such as NASA and the Department of Defense. Founded in 2004, HX5 is a fast-growing veteran- and woman-owned company with locations nationwide.

The Networks - Operations Controller (NOC) provides real time operational control and service assurance for enterprise networks that support DoD missions (IL4/5/6). This role watches network health and dependencies, leads incident response bridges, enforces change controls, and drives continuous improvement against SLAs/SLOs across data center, campus/branch, WAN/SD WAN, and boundary security segments.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities:

• Monitoring & Incident Response:
  • Maintain 24O7 situational awareness of network health (availability, latency, loss, jitter, capacity, link/path status).
  • Triage, contain, and restore service during incidents using documented runbooks/playbooks; coordinate swarming with
    Routing/Switching, Boundary Security, Platform, and Cyber teams.
  • Execute initial impact assessment, user/stakeholder communications, workarounds, and continuity steps, capture timelines and decisions for post incident review.
• Event & Observability Management:
  • Operate dashboards, alerts, and synthetic/active tests; tune thresholds to reduce noise while protecting SLOs.
  • Correlate telemetry (syslog, SNMP/streaming telemetry, NetFlow/IPFIX, route/adjacency state) with actionable escalation paths.
  • Validate monitoring for new or changed network services (health checks and alerts in place before go live)
• Change, Release & Configuration Control
  • Enforce CAB/CCB decisions, maintenance windows, freeze periods, and back out plans for network changes.
  • Verify pre change readiness (peer review, approvals, rollback tested, comms prepared) and confirm post change health.
  • Keep CMDB/CIs and topology/dependency maps current, record changes and relationships for traceability.
• Problem, Availability & Capacity Management
  • Lead problem investigations (recurring incidents, trend spikes); run root cause analysis (RCA) and durable corrective actions.
  • Track availability, MTTR/MTBF, error budgets, and capacity trends; recommend scaling, policy tuning, or resiliency patterns (path diversity, ECMP, QoS adjustments).
  • Drive backlog items with owners and verify closure via effectiveness checks.
• Boundary Security & Compliance (Operations)
  • Execute patch/vulnerability windows for boundary devices per plan; validate policy deployments and change results.
  • Operate within RMF/DISA STIG constraints; preserve audit trails and evidence for assessments and ATO/cATO sustainment.
  • Coordinate with Cyber/Blue Team on detections, containment steps, and after-action improvements.
• Service Level Management & Reporting
  • Measure and report SLAs/SLOs (site availability, ticket KPIs, change success, incident induced change rate) with daily/weekly/monthly executive rollups.
  • Maintain stakeholder communications for incidents, maintenance, and changes throughout the event lifecycle.
• Knowledge & Documentation
  • Author/maintain runbooks, troubleshooting guides, operational standards, KEDB (Known Error DB), and service catalogs; keep knowledge articles current.
  • Contribute to readiness reviews, go live checklists, and lessons learned, coach junior controllers and cross train peers.

Education and Experience:

• Must have 14, or more, years of general (full-time) work experience
  • May be reduced with advanced education
• Must have 7, or more, years of Network experience
• Must have 1, or more, years of experience working in a management or leadership role
• Must have 3, or more, years in network operations/NOC for large enterprise or DoD environments.
• Must have a solid grasp of L2/L3 fundamentals (VLANs, HSRP/VRRP, routing protocols such as OSPF/BGP, ACLs/NAT), SD WAN concepts, QoS basics, and boundary security operations.
• Must be familiar with telemetry sources (syslog, SNMP, NetFlow/IPFIX, streaming telemetry) and how to interpret them during incidents.
• Must be familiar with Microsoft 365, Azure, Active Directory, or similar enterprise platforms.
• Must have a strong incident/problem/change management discipline (ITIL 4), clear communications, and calm, structured decision making under pressure.
• Must have, or obtain within 90 days of hire, a DoD 8570 compliant certification (e.g., Security+).
• Must have, or obtain, an active DoD Secret Security Clearance

Preferred Requirements

• Have an active DoD Top Secret Security Clearance w/ SCI Eligibility
• Have a Bachelor's degree, or higher, in computer science, Information Technology
• Have experience supporting the Missile Defense Agency (MDA) or other DoD organizations.
• Be familiar with ITIL-based service operations and ticketing systems.
• Have a CCNA (or JNCIA), with progress toward CCNP welcomed.
• Have Fortinet NSE 4+ and/or firewall gateway associate level credential (if boundary operations are in scope).
• Have an ITIL 4 Foundation.

Position Type/Expected Hours of Work:

This is a full-time position requiring 40 hours per week and offers a flexible work schedule Monday through Friday duringcore business hours.

Other Position Requirements:

• Proof of U.S. Citizenship or US Permanent Residency is a requirement for this position.
• Must be able to complete a U.S. government background investigation.
• Must be able to obtain a Secret clearance.
• This position may require travel up to 25% of the time in support of MDA remote site integration activities.
• Must have a valid Drivers License.

HX5 offers a competitive salary and benefits package to include:

• Medical/Dental/Vision Insurance
• 401(k) plan with Company Match
• Paid Holidays
• Paid Time Off
• Parental Leave
• Life Insurance
• Tuition Reimbursement
• Medical and Dependent Care Flexible Spending Accounts
• Pet Insurance

HX5, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer that recruits and hires qualified candidates without regard to race, religion, sex, age, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, disability, or veteran status.

HX5, LLC is a Drug Free Workplace Employer.

ACCESSIBILITY NOTICE:
If you need a reasonable accommodation for any part of the employment process due to a physical or mental disability, pleasecall (850) 362-6551.

CJ