Wanted: A Techno-master of Interstellar Connectivity

(Also known as a Senior IT Network Engineer)

WHO WE ARE

Entara is a new kind of IT Managed Services Company. We’re built from the ground up to provide the strategic vision, platforms, processes and people to travel with our clients on the path to their best IT future. We partner with mid-sized Chicago organizations to make technology work brilliantly for our clients.

We launched in 2001, as the niche firm YJT Solutions (You Just Trade) helping to solve some of the IT challenges of Chicago’s most intense trading environments. Because of our success working in the financial industry, we branched out to serve other industries over a decade ago.

In 2018, we rebranded to entara because our company has grown and evolved far beyond its original roots. We are doubling down on making investments in our future to better serve our clients. We are evaluating new toolsets, selecting and integrating the best ones for our future-facing IT Service Management platform, entaraWorks. We are hiring tomorrow’s leaders, giving them the opportunity to grow beyond what they ever imagined.

We’ve been formally recognized as one of Chicago’s Best and Brightest Companies to Work For in both 2017 and 2018. Although we’re ranked among MSPmentor’s Top 200 global IT managed services providers, our customers are generally local to the Chicagoland area. Our sole focus is excellence. If you are fond of the phrase “close enough,” please don’t apply for this job. Our success is built on developing exceptional relationships with fellow co-workers and clients alike, as we collaboratively chart our best paths forward to the future.

Yes, we’re techies, geeks and nerds. But entara’s excellence is all about relationships, not technology. We build—and build on—trust with co-workers, end-users, clients and their clients and employees. Entara’s mission is to make those people’s lives easier and their businesses more successful by resolving their IT issues and managing their systems. Bonded to your computer screens? Don’t apply for this position. Interested in building more than internet connections? Come on board.

Frodo couldn’t do it alone. He needed a team. Entara values teamwork and collegiality, especially on those days that feel like a march to Mordor.  At entara, everyone has a role to play, everyone leads in one situation or another, and everyone has the opportunity to grow into positions of increasing responsibility. If your goal is to be Lord of the Ring, please don’t apply for this job. If you want to join the Fellowship of the Ring, please do apply!

WHAT YOU’LL BE DOING

(Otherwise known as the fine print, the list of job tasks and responsibilities.)

Senior Network Engineers are primarily responsible for specifying and implementing network solutions for entara’s clients, and for ensuring the stability and performance of client networks. Senior Network Engineers also provide a third-tier level of support for incidents and issues escalated from the Service Desk. They also have the opportunity to provide technical expertise to the pre-sales and professional services delivery teams for new projects and client onboarding. 

• Provide Operational Support
  • Troubleshoot complex network and server issues, determine and document root cause, and implement solutions
  • Develop and deploy solutions to customer systems requests
  • Proactively identify and remedy risks in customer environments
  • Design, deploy, manage, and troubleshoot monitoring tools and solutions
  • Onboard new clients and manage portions of the onboarding process
  • Maintain systems devices:
    • Handle configuration and patch management
    • Manage and maintain server applications
• Solidify Customer Relationships
  • Take ownership for client experience:
    • Guarantee SLAs are met; ensure customers are satisfied
    • Look for ways to improve continuous service delivery
  • Ensure client documentation is complete, accurate, and up-to-date
  • Identify and recommend improvements to customer systems
  • Interpret metrics and explain technology concepts to customers in a way that is meaningful and valuable to their business
• Review Standards and Conduct Research
  • Develop and document entara systems standards
  • Research and recommend new systems, technologies, tools, and platforms
• Create Efficiency
  • Develop processes and documentation for other engineers
  • Automate systems maintenance and operational tasks
  • Identify process improvements which will increase efficiency or reduce risk
• Collaborate
  • Receive escalations from other levels, and work escalated issues in tandem when possible.  Escalate to more senior resources when appropriate.
  • Delegate tasks when appropriate to improve efficiency and offer growth opportunities for other team members
  • Cross-train with other engineers and provide cross-training opportunities
  • Mentor junior engineers and analysts
• Improve Client Experience
  • Notify Sales when there are opportunities outside of the scope of an existing engagement, such as a project or additional service to manage
  • Engage with Sales to provide pre-sales technical expertise

WHO YOU ARE: REQUIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE

• You are completely familiar with the extended alphabet soup of IT—TCP, UDP, DNS, WINS, DHCP, VPN, STP, VLAN, EIGRP, 10GbE/1GbE—because you have at least four years of hands-on experience working with routing, switching, firewalls, and wireless networking. You do not have one year of experience repeated 20 times. You have at least a four-year degree in a relevant field, and you’ve earned vendor-level certifications like Microsoft MCSE, VMWare VCP, and Cisco CCNP.

• You’re the expert composer of the IT environment, turning disparate combinations of devices into beautiful, symphonic arrangements. Not only do you have a stellar foundation in hardware and operating systems and their diagnostic tools, you can masterfully navigate the elaborate configurations of core networking technologies, their tools and protocols, and the platforms they’re found on. You are the IT version of the Gershwin brothers—at the forefront of the latest in your field, performing at the highest levels, and constantly pioneering new solutions for the benefit of both clients and those colleagues coming up behind you. 
• You have highly developed knowledge of standard employee productivity suites, mobile device configurations and support, switching, network firewalls, and wireless security technologies. You have outstanding operational understanding of concepts like trunking, multi- and single-mode fiber circuits and cross-connects, VLAN tagging, and link aggregation. Your knowledge of Active Directory, Windows/Linux, and Storage Area Networks is superb. Microsoft services such as Exchange and SQL server are your old friends. You’re a master of the Cisco device ecosystem.

• You’ve got a specialty (or several) within networking support but are forever anxious to add new competencies. As a networking pro who refuses to reach a ceiling, you’re just as likely to valiantly conquer a wider breadth of technologies such as Citrix NetScaler appliances, security appliances like FireEye, Juniper or Arista devices, and protocol concepts such as WAN optimization, CoS/QoS, and multicast. The key to excellence—not to mention a fulfilling life—is continual learning. Entara supports and rewards professional growth.

If your skillset doesn’t meet these requirements, you won’t be a fit for this job. Please don’t apply. If you’re working toward this skill level, please look at our other job openings. One of them may be more suitable, while positioning you to move into a more senior engineering role.

WHO YOU ARE: PERSONALITY-WISE

• Right Brain, Left Brain OS: You’re a little obsessive-compulsive when it comes to knowledge of documented issues and solutions, but you’ve got a streak of Potter-ish ingenuity when something weird comes along. You break problems down, using a logical process of elimination to solve them. But you pay attention to intuitive inspiration.
• Persnickety: You develop complex, detailed instructions for complex, detailed tasks. Again, you avoid even thinking, “That’s good enough.” As someone who respects others’ time and manages expectations, you consider being “on-time” a virtue and see following through on commitments as the Holy Grail of your personal work ethic. You continually look to fill gaps in process, and find ways to improve those that already exist.
• Bilingual in English and Tech-speak. You understand what the problem is, even when the person calling is not making sense, technically speaking. While they’re talking, you’re thinking technologically, assessing and solving their issue, then translating the solution into English before communicating it to the end-user. In other words, you speak the mainstream language recognized by Muggles.

• Resilience of a rubber band: You don’t snap when stretched to your limits by panicked, frustrated and/or irate users who probably tried to solve the problem themselves before calling the Service Desk and are therefore operating on their last nerve. You have the temperament of a Zen monk on a Rocky Mountain high.

• Appetite for learning: You’re always reaching for the next apple on the knowledge tree, as well as the last piece of pizza in the box. Learning is its own reward—but it also helps when you have your eye on a job in the next tier. You like working in a managed-knowledge organization that promotes from within.
• Authoritative, but not autocratic: When tricky issues present themselves, you quickly know which resources to tap to develop solutions—and you understand the nuances of different approaches. You’ll be damned if you’re going to be stumped by a problem you know you can tackle; you consider yourself the consummate troubleshooter. Yet, you lead and delegate to others with clarity, and recognize when it’s time to consult a co-worker for help.

• Ambidexterity: You extend your hand down to support more junior engineers, as well as reach across the company for help when you need it. You’re adept at balancing your own workload with the responsibilities of the team. You’re intentional about sharing constructive feedback and ideas with colleagues while welcoming the same in return.

We’re serious about these qualities. If they don’t apply to you, you won’t be happy at entara and we won’t be happy with you. We’ll part ways sooner rather than later.  Let’s avoid all that discomfort by agreeing you won’t contort yourself to meet requirements that just don’t fit. You are who you are, and that’s okay.

WHAT YOU GET IN RETURN

You’ll have a direct impact on our operations, our clients, and our fellow entaraCorps members. Because of that impact, you’ll get our respect and gratitude for the role you play in making entara the best it can be.

We’ll provide you with skills, training, responsibility and opportunities to grow, both at entara and wherever your career takes you in the future. (However, we hope you’ll be successful here for a good, long time.)

We consider mentoring and participating in the continual learning of others to be absolutely essential for both you and your co-workers. You’ll benefit by developing your leadership skills—and by having a replacement ready when you’re ready to move up to another position.

We know that’s not enough.

Here are some of the employee benefits we currently offer:

• BCBS Gold-level PPO Medical Insurance, premiums paid 100% by us
• Generous and flexible Paid Time Off policy
• 401k Corporate Matching Program
• Reimbursement for approved certification tests and training, seminars, conferences and more
• Dental Insurance
• Disability Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Healthcare Savings Account (HSA)
• Dependent Care FSA
• Tax-advantaged Commuter Benefit Plans
• Company-wide outings every three months. Recent examples include Ravinia concerts, rooftop barbecues, floating the Chicago River, bowling & bocce, laser tag, and vintage gaming at Headquarters, among other things!

And there’s more…

Free snacks and drinks, weekly lunches, and “Fridays at Four.” Combine that with the chance to work with a variety of clients in some of the most interesting industries around, solve big problems, create new pathways in managed services, and help to lead our clients and ourselves deep into the future, and entara becomes the one IT company that’s hard to beat.

And there’s even more...                                

Our spirit is what makes us different. We work hard. We play hard. We care about each other because we respect where each of us comes from and who we are. We have a more evolved notion of teamwork--solving client problems together and scouring the horizon for new ideas together. We recognize the journey we’re all on, from our clients to ourselves. We’re all at different places on that journey, and each stop requires support, knowledge and courage to move on. It’s why we bring the best tools and support to our clients. And why we treat and reward our entaraCorps the way we do.