Senior OT/ICS Network Engineer - Jackson
Role Overview
Verge Management Group is conducting a retained search on behalf of a confidential client, a multi-plant North American manufacturer about to rebuild its OT network from the ground up. They need a hands-on OT network engineer for a major modernization program that starts at their largest plant, rolls to every site after, and is being built secure by design from day one. The Role Most OT network jobs are babysitting. Keep the flat network alive, pray nobody plugs a laptop into the wrong port, repeat. This isn't that. The client is launching a major automation and network upgrade. It starts at their largest plant. Then it goes to every other plant. And it's being built secure by design, which means segmentation, access control, and visibility go in with the new gear instead of getting bolted on three years later when an auditor starts asking awkward questions. You'll be one of the engineers doing the actual design and building. Not reviewing slides about it. Configuring it, cutting it over, and owning it after go-live.
The Mission
The Mission
- ·Design, configure, and maintain the OT network stack (industrial switches, routers, firewalls, wireless, VPN) with production uptime as the scoreboard
- ·Drive the plant-by-plant upgrade, starting at the flagship site and carrying a repeatable, documented build to every facility after it
- ·Build segmentation and secure remote access into the design from the start, working with InfoSec so audit readiness is a byproduct, not a fire drill
- ·Partner with automation engineers to keep PLC, HMI, and SCADA traffic flowing through cutovers that can't stop the line
- ·Run the unglamorous fundamentals well: VLANs, config backups, patching, change control. Done right, nobody notices. Done wrong, everybody does.
The Numbers You'll Own
The client is clear about what good looks like: 99.5%+ uptime on critical OT infrastructure, 95%+ patch compliance on network devices, and 95%+ change success without disrupting production. If metrics make you itchy, this isn't your seat. If you like knowing exactly how you're being scored, you'll love it.
Why Now
Most network engineers spend their whole career inheriting someone else's decisions. Flat networks, mystery switches, a firewall rule from 2011 nobody will admit to writing.
Here you get to make the decisions, then watch them roll out across an entire manufacturing footprint. Projects like this don't come around often, and when they do, the people who build them walk away as the ones who designed the OT architecture. That line looks good on a resume. It looks even better in your next comp conversation.
Relevant Skills and Experience
The Tech
- ·Cisco Industrial Ethernet switching, Catalyst, Firepower, ISE, and Catalyst Center
- ·ICS protocols: Modbus, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP (CIP), OPC, DNP3
- ·OT visibility and security tooling: Cisco Cyber Vision, Stealthwatch
- ·Bonus points: IEC 60870-5-101/104 and IEC 61850
Relevant Skills and Experience
- ·5-10 years of network administration, with 2+ on industrial or OT networks. Plant floor, not just the data center.
- ·Hands-on routing, switching, and firewall work. You've broken a network before and fixed it before anyone upstairs found out.
- ·Working knowledge of ICS protocols, and a healthy respect for why a "quick change" on an OT network is never quick
- ·CCNA and or CCNP or equivalent is a plus.
- ·Manufacturing or industrial experience strongly preferred
Interested? Reach out to Verge Management Group. All searches are confidential, on both sides of the table.
Job Summary
VMG guarantees strict confidentiality for all applicants.