Consulting Engineer

Job description

Job posting may be removed earlier if the position is filled or if a sufficient number of applications are received. Meet the Team As a Senior Network Consulting Engineer within Cisco Customer Experience (CX) Professional Services, you will serve as a premier technical authority and trusted advisor for our top-tier enterprise, service provider, and public sector clients across Italy and Southern Europe. You will lead the architectural design, deployment, migration, automation, and lifecycle optimization of mission-critical Data Center infrastructures powered by Cisco Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI), Nexus 9000 series switches, and VXLAN EVPN fabrics. This senior consulting role bridges deep hands-on engineering capabilities with strategic customer consulting, leading multi-functional delivery engagements, mentoring regional engineers, and accelerating client transition toward software-defined, automated, and AI-ready data center networks. Your Impact In this high-visibility role, your key responsibilities and deliverables will include: · End-to-End Solution Architecture & Delivery: Lead the end-to-end planning, High-Level Design (HLD), Low-Level Design (LLD), staging, deployment, and Day-2 acceptance testing for large-scale Cisco Data Center network environments. · Hands-on Cisco ACI & VXLAN Fabric Expertise: Design, configure, and troubleshoot Cisco ACI controller clusters (APIC), multi-tenancy models, VRFs, Bridge Domains (BDs), Application Network Profiles (ANPs), Endpoint Groups (EPGs), Contracts, and Micro-segmentation policies. Deploy Multi-Pod (IPN), Multi-Site Orchestrator (NDO / Nexus Dashboard Orchestrator), Remote Leaf, and standalone Nexus VXLAN EVPN fabrics. · Complex Network Migrations & MOP Authoring: Develop comprehensive migration architectures, detailed Method of Procedure (MOP) documentation, and contingency fallback plans to transition legacy environments (classic 3-tier, vPC, FabricPath) into programmable ACI/VXLAN fabrics with zero or minimal service disruption. · Hybrid Work Mode Availability (Rome & Milan Hubs): This role operates in a flexible Hybrid work model. You will balance productive remote/virtual delivery with scheduled onsite engagements at customer data center facilities, client executive briefing centers, and local Cisco offices in Rome (preferred site) and Milan (Vimercate / Milan Hub) as required by project milestones, architectural workshops, and critical cutovers. · Trusted Technical Advisor & Stakeholder Engagement: Establish trusted advisor relationships with customer Chief Architects, IT Directors, and NetOps teams, translating high-level business goals into robust, resilient, and secure technical architectures. · Network Automation & Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC): Drive deployment velocity, consistency, and compliance by building and integrating network automation scripts using Python (ACI Cobra SDK / Arya), Ansible ACI modules, Terraform ACI Provider, and REST APIs. · L4–L7 Integration & Security Service Chaining: Architect seamless integration of Layer 4–7 services (Cisco Secure Firewall ASA/FTD, third-party firewalls, and F5/Citrix load balancers) via ACI Service Graphs, L2Out, and L3Out (BGP/OSPF). · Technical Leadership, Mentorship & Quality Governance: Provide technical oversight and rigorous peer review of High-Level and Low-Level designs across the regional delivery team; coach and mentor junior and mid-level consulting engineers. · Secondary skills: any additional competence on top of DC will be a plus. Minimum Qualifications: · Experience & Track Record: Typically requires a Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Telecommunications, Electronic Engineering (or equivalent technical background) along with 8+ years of hands-on professional services or network consulting experience in enterprise/SP Data Center environments. · Industry Certifications: Active Cisco CCIE Data Center or CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure / Routing & Switching certification (or equivalent validated expert-level industry mastery). · Deep Cisco ACI Architecture: Expert knowledge of ACI fabric design, Spine-Leaf topologies, APIC controller cluster management, Tenant isolation, VRF routing, BDs, EPGs, Contracts, Micro-segmentation, ACI Multi-Pod (IPN), and Multi-Site (NDO). · Nexus & VXLAN EVPN Expertise: Extensive hands-on configuration of Cisco Nexus 9000, 7000, 5000 switches running NX-OS. In-depth mastery of VXLAN overlays with BGP EVPN control plane, distributed anycast gateways, Symmetric IRB, and Data Center Interconnect (DCI). · Routing & Switching Mastery: Advanced proficiency with core internetworking protocols: BGP (iBGP, eBGP, MP-BGP), OSPF, IS-IS, Segment Routing, vPC, STP, QoS, Multicast (PIM-SM/Bidir), and Layer 2/3 encapsulation. · Day-2 Assurance & Operations: Practical experience with Cisco Nexus Dashboard, Nexus Dashboard Insights (NDI), Nexus Dashboard Fabric Controller (NDFC / DCNM), and Network Assurance Engine (NAE). · Language Skills: Fluency in Italian and professional working proficiency in English (written and verbal) are required for customer-facing engagements across Italy and multinational projects. Preferred Qualifications: · Network Programmability: Hands-on scripting skills in Python, Ansible, Terraform ACI provider, Postman, Git workflows, and RESTful API data structures (JSON/XML). · Cloud & Virtualization: Experience with hybrid cloud integrations (AWS, Azure, GCP), VMware vSphere / VDS integration with ACI, and container networking (Kubernetes / OpenShift CNI). · Consulting Acumen: Exceptional analytical, presentation, and technical writing skills; ability to convey complex SDN architectural principles confidently to both C-level executives and engineering teams. Why Cisco? At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint. Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere. We are Cisco, and our power starts with you. The starting salary range posted for this position is €58,600.00 to €77,300.00 and reflects the projected salary range for new hires in this position, not including incentive compensation*, equity, or benefits.Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location, market conditions, job-related skillset, experience, qualifications, education, certifications, and/or training. The full salary range for certain locations is listed below. For locations not listed below, the recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process. For non-sales roles, employees may also be eligible to earn annual bonuses subject to Cisco’s policies. Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components, subject to the applicable Cisco plan. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows: .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota; 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%; 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and Once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no c