Principal Network Engineer

Company: GD Information Technology
Location: Arlington
Posted on: April 1, 2026

Job Description:

Type of Requisition: Regular Clearance Level Must Currently Possess: Top Secret/SCI Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain: Top Secret/SCI Public Trust/Other Required: None Job Family: IT Infrastructure and Operations Job Qualifications: Skills: Cisco Routers and Switches, Network Engineering, Network Infrastructures Certifications: CCNA - Cisco - Cisco, CCNP - Cisco - Cisco, CompTIA - Security CE - CompTIA - CompTIA Experience: 10 years of related experience US Citizenship Required: Yes Job Description: GDIT is seeking a Principal Network Engineer to join our JSP ETM-NG (Joint Service Provider Enterprise Transport Management - Next Gen) team. Due to the nature of this role, the employee must report full-time onsite in Arlington, VA. As a Principal Network Engineer, you will provide technical leadership, oversight, and direction to the Core Transport Network Engineering team and mentors and instructs network engineers on best practices and the execution of network enhancements and upgrades and troubleshooting efforts in a large and complex network environment. You will be responsible for the health and maintenance of a large, complex networking infrastructure. This includes providing network administration and operational support to more than 8000 networked devices. The Principal Network Engineer will provide comprehensive network administration, security enhancements and remediation, and troubleshooting of network devices such as routers, switches, load balancers, VPNs, 802.11 Wireless, and VoIP. This position requires an understanding of best practices pertaining to network security and may require the development, deployment, and integration of network security services. How a Principal Network Engineer will make an impact: Act as a subject-matter expert to network routing and switching, as well as network performance monitoring and troubleshooting Review completion and implementation of system additions and/or enhancements and makes recommendations to management and/or clients. Evaluate new application, infrastructure, and cloud decisions in existing context of applications, infrastructure, standards, current business strategy and future business strategy Determine system specifications, input/output processes, and working parameters for hardware/software compatibility Provide guidance and work leadership to less-experienced IT staff and may have supervisory responsibilities. Serve as liaison with senior clients, participating in meetings to ensure client needs are met. Provides problem and incident resolution, including dealing with software and hardware vendor technical support. Deploy and maintain network hardware, peripherals, services, and settings in accordance with industry standards and project/operational requirements. Performs daily system monitoring; verifies the integrity and availability of networking hardware, services, systems, and key processes; reviews system and application logs. Documents and conducts changes during ASI windows. Provides leadership in on-call troubleshooting and issue resolution as required. Develops and maintains installation and configuration procedures. Collaborate with the Security team to identify and remediate application and operating system vulnerabilities. Acts as a liaison with other groups to provide information sharing pertaining to the needs of the diverse set of computer users supported by the client as a whole. Develop scripts and other automation solutions to aid in the completion of migration and integration tasks. What you’ll need to succeed (Required): Bring your program management expertise along with a drive for innovation to GDIT. The Principal Network Engineer must have: Education: Bachelor’s Degree. An additional 4 years of experience may be substituted in leu of degree. Security clearance level: Active Top Secret required with the ability to obtain SCI. Experience: 8 years of related experience. Certifications: Current IAT Level II certification required. In addition, candidate must possess one or more of the following active network certifications: Cisco Certified Network Administrator (CCNA), Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP) or Aruba Certified Switching Associate (ACSA). Minimum of 3 years’ experience supporting DoW, DISA, or JSP Network environments. Expert knowledge of information technology principles, methods, and techniques. Extensive experience troubleshooting, managing, and monitoring the health of Cisco and Juniper routers and switches. Extensive experience in Software Define Networks (SDN). Broad understanding of network infrastructure topologies, security policies, firewalls, and the L2/L3 switch and router infrastructure. Experience deploying, managing, and troubleshooting network systems, switching, and routing protocol standards such as: TCP/IP, MPLS, OSPF, BGP, SDN, and 802.1x. Experience managing and troubleshooting DNS, DHCP, IPAM, and NTP in a large multi-site environment. Experience with network security, including firewall, IDS/IPS, VPN, and vulnerability remediation. Experience using network management and analysis tools such as SNMP probes, network taps, and traffic analyzer. Experience with Network Management & Performance platforms, such as NetScout, IBM NetCool, Solarwinds NMS products, NetBrain, Infovista, Clearpass, Aruba, Arista. Experience building configurations using CLI. GDIT IS YOUR PLACE At GDIT, the mission is our purpose, and our people are at the center of everything we do. Growth: AI-powered career tool that identifies career steps and learning opportunities. Support: An internal mobility team focused on helping you achieve your career goals. Rewards: Comprehensive benefits and wellness packages, 401K with company match, and competitive pay and paid time off. Community: Award-winning culture of innovation and a military-friendly workplace. OWN YOUR OPPORTUNITY Explore an enterprise IT career at GDIT and you’ll find endless opportunities to grow alongside colleagues who share your desire to drive operations forward. The likely salary range for this position is $153,000 - $207,000. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range. Scheduled Weekly Hours: 40 Travel Required: Less than 10% T elecommuting Options: Onsite Work Location: USA VA Arlington Additional Work Locations: Total Rewards at GDIT: Our benefits package for all US-based employees includes a variety of medical plan options, some with Health Savings Accounts, dental plan options, a vision plan, and a 401(k) plan offering the ability to contribute both pre and post-tax dollars up to the IRS annual limits and receive a company match. To encourage work/life balance, GDIT offers employees full flex work weeks where possible and a variety of paid time off plans, including vacation, sick and personal time, holidays, paid parental, military, bereavement and jury duty leave. To ensure our employees are able to protect their income, other offerings such as short and long-term disability benefits, life, accidental death and dismemberment, personal accident, critical illness and business travel and accident insurance are provided or available. We regularly review our Total Rewards package to ensure our offerings are competitive and reflect what our employees have told us they value most. We are GDIT. A global technology and professional services company that delivers consulting, technology and mission services to every major agency across the U.S. government, defense and intelligence community. Our 30,000 experts extract the power of technology to create immediate value and deliver solutions at the edge of innovation. We operate across 50 countries worldwide, offering leading capabilities in digital modernization, AI/ML, Cloud, Cyber and application development. Together with our clients, we strive to create a safer, smarter world by harnessing the power of deep expertise and advanced technology. Join our Talent Community to stay up to date on our career opportunities and events at gdit.com/tc . Equal Opportunity Employer / Individuals with Disabilities / Protected Veterans

Keywords: GD Information Technology, Mesquite , Principal Network Engineer, IT / Software / Systems , Arlington, Texas