Principal Network Engineer
Company Background and Summary
Vaylent is a Cerberus-backed aerospace and defense manufacturing platform building the enterprise infrastructure, capabilities, and operational foundation to support a growing network of manufacturing companies, including Votaw Precision Technologies. Through its operating companies, Vaylent supports demanding aerospace, defense, and industrial programs by combining advanced manufacturing expertise with scalable business and technology infrastructure.
The Principal Network Engineer will be the senior technical owner of Vaylent's network, responsible for designing, building, and securing connectivity across existing sites and new facility standups. This hands-on, high-autonomy role will architect and mature a segmented, multi-site network designed to meet CMMC Level 2 requirements.
What You Will Own (Essential Functions)
- Design and deliver the platform network across all Vela sites, including new facility standups — LAN/WAN, SD-WAN, firewalls, switching, and wireless.
- Establish network segmentation and isolation of shop-floor OT from enterprise IT in line with CMMC Level 2 / NIST SP 800-171 and a defense-in-depth (Purdue-model) architecture.
- Remediate site connectivity problems— assess current-state connectivity, resolve reliability issues, and evaluate options (including any satellite/Starlink proposal) against ITAR/CUI data-handling requirements before adoption.
- Stand up new facilities with standardized, repeatable network architecture that supports a fast acquisition-integration playbook.
- Own boundary protection (next-generation firewalls and secure remote access, including jump/bastion hosts into controlled environments). Palo Alto, Fortinet, or similar a plus.
- Partner with cloud engineering to secure connectivity between on-prem sites and AWS GovCloud (Direct Connect / VPN).
- Own foundational network services — including plant-floor wireless, core services (DNS/DHCP/IPAM), load balancing, and site-to-site VPN across the platform.
- Establish visibility — stand up network monitoring/NMS and maintain current network documentation and diagrams (also serving as CMMC audit evidence).
- Sustain reliability — supporting a 24/7 manufacturing operation, including participation in an escalation/on-call rotation to protect production uptime.
- Provide technical direction and mentorship to junior network engineers as the team grows.