Platte River Power Authority is a not-for-profit, community-owned public power utility that generates and delivers safe, reliable, environmentally responsible and financially sustainable energy and services to Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland, Colorado, for delivery to their utility customers.
At Platte River, we share a sense of purpose and pride in the value we add to our communities, our region and the energy industry. We rely on our staff to sustain our leadership role in the region and to help lead the transition to a noncarbon energy future. To accomplish this, we offer competitive pay and benefits, state-of-the-art workplaces at both headquarters and the Rawhide Energy Station, and the following unique benefits:
- Onsite, fully equipped gym facilities
- Fleet cars for use by staff for local business travel
- Employee rewards, health and financial wellness programs
- Volunteer days and opportunities to participate in community events
- Culture of respect, commitment and camaraderie
If you’re searching for a collaborative working environment within a mid-sized organization that values innovative ideas, diverse perspectives and provides opportunities to make a difference, consider joining the Platte River team.
Job summary
The Senior Network Engineer is responsible for leading the design, deployment, implementation, and lifecycle management of complex network infrastructure systems. Oversees advanced network architecture, configuration, optimization, and maintenance activities. Identifies and resolves complex technical issues, performs in‑depth system assessments, and implements durable solutions to ensure reliability and performance. Responsibilities include managing system updates and patching, executing vulnerability management tasks, monitoring and analyzing system health and logs, and maintaining accurate architecture diagrams and documentation. Contributes to long‑term infrastructure strategy, provides expert‑level troubleshooting support, and guides best practices throughout the environment.
Essential duties and responsibilities
- Models the mission, vision, values, and culture of the organization
Advanced-Level Support for Information technology (IT) Environments:
- Provide advanced support to the infrastructure team, assisting staff with complex problems using advanced skills and extensive experience.
- Provide advanced networking support, troubleshooting/resolving incidents, and mentoring lower-level system engineers.
System Design and Development for IT
- Lower-level design implementation and deployment of complex systems, ensuring alignment with project objectives and industry best practices.
- Collaborates with project management, stakeholders, applications, service desk, and cybersecurity teams for project scoping, Low-level design understanding, and ensuring standards are accurate and well-documented.
Monitoring and Configuration for IT
- Ensure systems are properly configured and proactively monitored in the environment, supporting the team in maintaining these standards.
- Manage the maintenance and patching process, including researching, documenting, and communicating changes; handle change tickets and implement patches in the IT environment.
- Help maintain new and existing monitoring tools
Network Analysis and Troubleshooting for IT
- Perform system analysis, troubleshooting, and debugging to ensure system performance and reliability.
- Recommend new tools and participate in vendor evaluations with the team of new innovative tools.
Network Engineering and Management for IT
- Collaborate with the team and vendors for current industry trends and emerging technologies, recommending their integration into our systems.
- Participate in the evaluation and selection of third-party tools and components.
- Buildout of low-level design and network diagrams, new project integration, and innovative deployments.
- Collaborate with the Information Governance group to develop and follow retention policies and processes.
- Adhere to and contribute to change management processes and procedures.
Network Engineering and Administration
- Deploy and implement the overall network infrastructure. This includes LAN, WAN, WLAN, and data center network solutions.
- Implement routing, switching, wireless, and network segmentation strategies throughout the network.
- Deploy the architected network design for the installation, configuration, testing, and management of network equipment across the organization.
- Deploy advanced features such as high availability, wide-area routing, route redistribution, and link aggregation.
- Manage and maintain routers, firewalls, and assist with defining/implementing complex firewall rules and ACLs.
- Deploy and configure wireless networking management and monitoring technologies.
- Develop and test device hardening standards and processes.
- Advanced understanding of networking concepts, including layer 2/3, wireless, firewalls, ACLs, VPNs, WAN, OSI/TCP/IP models, IP address management, DHCP, DNS, servers, storage systems, network equipment, and datacenter hardware.
Additional Requirements
- Effectively collaborates with cross-functional stakeholders, manages competing priorities, and consistently delivers high-quality work within established deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
- Serve as a technical mentor to junior engineers.
- Lead technical aspects of infrastructure projects.
- Continuously develop new skills through training and collaboration with experienced systems engineers.
- Demonstrate safe work practices and comply with established safety procedures
- Perform other duties as assigned
Knowledge, skills, and abilities
Requirements
- Delivers reliable and secure information technology solutions combined with the highest levels of customer service
- Produces clear, accurate, and professional written communications, delivers information effectively to diverse audiences, and demonstrates active listening skills to ensure understanding and successful collaboration.
- Willingness to learn new technologies and obtain and maintain required technical certifications
- Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships, exhibit a positive attitude, and collaborate with others to provide high level of customer service
- Ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously and work with frequent interruptions.
- Ability to work occasionally during the evenings, weekends, after hours and on-call for both scheduled and unscheduled events
- Possess intermediate troubleshooting skills in areas of assignment and basic troubleshooting skills of other areas
- Considered a subject matter expert in at least one of the assignment areas
- Experience using Visio or similar tools for creating diagrams and documentation
Network Architecture and Engineering
- Advanced understanding of OSI or TCP/IP networking models
- Design, implement, and support enterprise network infrastructure include LAN, WAN, wireless, VPN, and data center networks.
- Manage data center technologies including VXLAN, BGP, and OSPF.
- Comprehensive understanding of IP address management, DHCP and DNS
- Advanced understanding of monitoring and logging tools
- Develop scalable network solutions aligned with business objectives and technology roadmaps.
- Lead network modernization initiatives, upgrades, migrations, and infrastructure refresh projects.
- Advanced understanding of wireless networking and management technologies
- Advanced understanding of firewalls, ACLs, and VPNs
- Advanced understanding of WAN and routing technologies
- Provide Tier 3 support for complex network issues and outages; follow up with root cause analysis and develop corrective action plans.
Network Security
- Implement and maintain network security controls including next-generation firewalls, network segmentation, NAC solutions, and VPN services
- Collaborate with cybersecurity teams to ensure compliance with security standards and policies
Qualifications
Required
- Six to seven years of experience as a systems engineer or equivalent in an enterprise computing environment
- Bachelor’s degree in computer information systems, Computer Science, Engineering or related field or equivalent combination of education and experience
- Relevant experience may be substituted for education
- Current valid driver’s license and ability to remain insurable under the vehicle liability policy
Preferred education, licenses, and work experience
- Master’s degree in computer information systems, Computer Science, Engineering or related field or equivalent combination of education and experience
- Certifications from CompTIA, Microsoft, Palo Alto, and Cisco i.e. CompTIA Server+
Physical demands
Minimal physical effort typically found in clerical work. Primarily sedentary, may occasionally lift and carry light objects. Minimal walking or standing as needed.
Hazards
Minimal exposure to hazards are typically found in general office environment where there is rarely to no exposure to injury or accident.
Work environment
Exposure to routine office noise and equipment
Pay
Salaries are paid bi-weekly and are annualized below for reference. Factors that may be used to determine actual salary include special skills, years of experience, education, and certifications.
- Full range: $124,820 to $180,991
- Hiring range: $124,820 to $152,906
Platte River Power Authority offers employees an outstanding benefits package. Benefits offered for this position may include the following:
- Health insurance options including a PPO and high deductible health savings account with prescription drug coverage
- Telemedicine
- Benefit advocacy
- Dental insurance
- Vision insurance
- Flexible spending plan
- Basic life insurance
- Basic accidental death and disability
- Dependent life and supplemental life insurance options (voluntary)
- Accidental death and disability insurance (voluntary)
- Long-term disability insurance
- Retirement plans 401a defined contribution plan 457b deferred compensation plan
- Paid holidays (12 annually)
- Paid time off: personal and sick leave
- Wellness program
- In-house training opportunities
- Tuition reimbursement
- Employee assistance program
For additional information, please see our website careers page at: https://www.prpa.org/careers/benefits/
Platte River Power Authority is an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to maintaining a workplace free from discrimination. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, national origin or ancestry, sex, gender identity, age, religion, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, disability, sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other protected status under applicable federal, state, and local laws.
Platte River endeavors to make our careers site accessible to any and all users. If you would like to contact us regarding the accessibility of our website or need assistance completing the application process, please call us at 970-229-5323 or email recruiting@prpa.org. Must be legally eligible to work in the United States. Platte River cannot provide employment to applicants who will require sponsorship now or in the future (i.e. H1B visa, OPT status).
Recruitment notice: Platte River Power Authority does not accept unsolicited resumes from headhunters, recruitment agencies or fee-based placement services. No agency emails, calls, or solicitations to staff are accepted without a valid agreement. Any unsolicited resume submitted to staff will be considered property of Platte River Power Authority and with no obligation to pay any referral fees.