Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineer

Job Title : Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineer

Location : Sacramento, California, 95814

Experience Required : 12+ Years

Employment Type : Contract

About the Role

We are looking for a highly experienced NOC Engineer to support and maintain critical network infrastructure for our organization. This role is responsible for monitoring network performance, responding to incidents, resolving connectivity issues, and ensuring stable and secure operations across multiple environments. The ideal candidate will have extensive hands-on experience in network administration, troubleshooting, system monitoring, and incident management in fast-paced environments.

Key Responsibilities

Monitor network systems, servers, circuits, and applications to ensure high availability and performance.

Identify, diagnose, and resolve network and system issues in real time.

Manage escalation procedures and coordinate with internal teams and vendors when necessary.

Perform root-cause analysis for outages and provide recommendations to prevent future issues.

Track and update incident tickets, documentation, and status reports with detailed accuracy.

Support implementation of changes, upgrades, and maintenance activities with minimal downtime.

Configure and troubleshoot routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, and WAN / LAN connectivity.

Ensure compliance with operational standards, security policies, and best practices.

Use monitoring and analysis tools to proactively detect performance or capacity issues.

Participate in on-call rotation and provide support during off-hours when required.

Required Skills and Experience

12+ years of experience working in a NOC, network engineering, or similar operations environment.

Strong understanding of TCP / IP, DNS, DHCP, BGP, OSPF, MPLS, VPN, VLANs, and routing / switching.

Hands-on experience with enterprise-level network hardware such as Cisco, Juniper, Palo Alto, or similar.

Proficiency with network monitoring tools (SolarWinds, Nagios, Zabbix, Splunk, Wireshark, etc.).

Strong troubleshooting skills and ability to manage complex network incidents under pressure.

Experience working in ITIL-based service management environments.

Ability to analyze logs, performance metrics, and traffic patterns.

Excellent communication and documentation skills.

Preferred Qualifications

Industry certifications such as CCNA, CCNP, JNCIP, Network+, or equivalent.

Experience supporting cloud or hybrid network environments (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud).

Experience with VOIP networking and security systems.