Sr Network Operations Specialist I

Department Description 

At Disney, we’re storytellers. We make the impossible, possible. The Walt Disney Company is a world-class entertainment and technological leader. Walt’s passion was to continuously envision new ways to move audiences around the world—a passion that remains our touchstone in an enterprise that stretches from theme parks, resorts and a cruise line to sports, news, movies and a variety of other businesses. Uniting each endeavor is a commitment to creating and delivering unforgettable experiences — and we’re constantly looking for new ways to enhance these exciting experiences. 

The Enterprise Technology mission is to deliver technology solutions that align to business strategies while enabling enterprise efficiency and promoting cross-company collaborative innovation. Our group drives competitive advantage by enhancing our consumer experiences, enabling business growth, and advancing operational excellence. 

Team Description: 

Reporting to the Director of Automation, Tooling, and Observability within Global Network Engineering & Operations (GNEO), the Network Observability Engineer plays a critical role in providing insights to maintain the health of global enterprise-wide networks. The Network Observability Engineer will be responsible for designing, building, and maintaining the end-to-end telemetry pipeline for our global IT network infrastructure. This role moves beyond traditional monitoring by leveraging Logs, Metrics, and Traces (the three pillars of Observability) to provide deep, actionable insights into network health, performance, and security, enabling proactive issue detection and root cause analysis in a highly complex, distributed environment. 

Responsibilities of Role: 

Observability Pipeline & Tooling 

• Design & Implement: Own the full lifecycle of the network observability platform, including data ingestion, storage, processing, and visualization. 

• Telemetry Collection: Establish robust collection methods (e.g., SNMP, NetFlow/IPFIX, Syslog, Streaming Telemetry, OpenTelemetry) from a diverse array of network devices (routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, Wi-Fi controllers). 

• Instrumentation: Partner with Network Engineering and Operations teams to properly instrument new infrastructure and services to ensure comprehensive data capture. 

• Tool Management: Manage and optimize the core observability tool suite (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK Stack, Splunk, Datadog, ThousandEyes, ScienceLogic, LogicMonitor, SevOne, Netcool). 

Proactive Monitoring & Alerting 

• SLI/SLO Definition: Collaborate with stakeholders to define and implement Service Level Indicators (SLIs) and Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for critical network services. 

• Alert Engineering: Develop and refine intelligent, context-aware alerting and anomaly detection models to reduce alert fatigue and enable faster Mean Time To Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time To Resolution (MTTR). 

• Visualization: Create high-impact, real-time dashboards that align network performance data with business impact and provide immediate operational context. 

Automation & Improvement 

• Automation/Scripting: Develop scripts and automation (e.g., Python, Ansible, Terraform) to streamline the deployment, configuration, and maintenance of all observability tools and integrations. 

• Root Cause Analysis (RCA): Utilize observability data to drive deep-dive RCAs, identifying systemic issues, and proposing preventative measures and architectural improvements. 

• Data Correlation: Implement tracing and correlation techniques to connect network performance issues to application and end-user experience, providing end-to-end transaction visibility. 

Must Haves (Years of Experience, languages, programs, tools, etc.):  

• 5+ years of experience in a Network Engineering, Systems Reliability Engineering, or Observability role. 

• Deep understanding of Network Fundamentals: TCP/IP stack, BGP, OSPF, MPLS, DNS, Load Balancing (LTM/GTM), and network security. 

• Observability Stack Proficiency: Hands-on experience with at least two major platforms (e.g., Prometheus/Grafana, Splunk/ELK, Datadog, Dynatrace). 

• Scripting & Automation: Strong proficiency in Python and experience with configuration management tools like Ansible. 

• Telemetry Protocols: Expertise with NetFlow, sFlow, SNMP MIBs, and Syslog management. 

• Proven ability to translate complex technical data into clear, concise reports and presentations for both technical and non-technical audiences. 

• Strong collaborative skills, with a focus on working across NetOps, DevOps, and Security teams. 

Education: 

• Required: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Software, Electrical or Electronics Engineering, or comparable field of study, and/or equivalent work experience

Nice To Haves: 

• Experience with cloud networking and observability tools in AWS, Azure, or GCP. 

• Familiarity with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tools like Terraform or Ansible. 

• Certifications such as CCNA/CCNP, Certified Prometheus Associate, or a relevant cloud certification. 

• Experience with distributed tracing concepts and tools (e.g., Jaeger, Zipkin, OpenTelemetry).