Lead Network Engineer

The company

At Fora, we're fueled by a desire to enhance the way people work. We're here for the progressives, the forward thinkers, the status quo challengers, the creators and the innovators. With signature hospitality, a likeminded community of members and a re energising wellness experience, Fora takes the grind out of daily work life, so members can focus on what's important - working productively, healthily and happily.

Our journey began over 20 years ago, when we opened our first location on London's City Road. Since then, our collection has grown to over 60 distinctive workspaces across London, the UK and Germany, totaling 3.2 million sq ft of real estate. Over the last two decades we have welcomed approximately 300,000 members through our doors, with over 30,000 members today, and boast market leading retention rates.

As a trusted workspace provider for teams of all sizes, from established brands to new ventures, our uniquely designed, flexible office spaces come with a range of exceptional on site amenities and a dedicated Member Experience team to take care of all the day to day details. Ocado, The British Fashion Council and Pangaia are just some of the businesses who call a Fora workspace home.

Fora is London's leading provider of flexible offices. All our design led spaces are open and supported by our dedicated front of house teams, five days per week. We pride ourselves on being a highly collaborative team, with our best work happening in person, at our Fitzrovia based headquarters.

Fora is part of The Office Group, backed by Blackstone and Brockton Capital. We have ambitious plans to expand our collection of workspaces in the future, pioneering industry change through our conscious design and construction practices, and creating workspaces that empower our members to work in their own unique way.

The role

We are seeking a highly skilled Lead Network Engineer to design, implement, and maintain secure, reliable, and scalable network infrastructures across on premises and cloud environments. The ideal candidate will have hands on experience with Cisco networking (including Meraki solutions), as well as strong expertise in Azure networking and security services. This role will play a key part in ensuring the stability, performance, and security of our IT environment.

This is a hands on leadership role responsible for designing and managing network infrastructure to support business growth and security.

Key responsibilities;

• Design, configure, and maintain enterprise network infrastructure including Cisco and Meraki solutions (routers, switches, firewalls, wireless, VPN).
• Engineer and lead the design of multi tenant networks with per building segmentation and customer specific VPNs, ensuring security and performance at scale.
• Design and manage Azure networking and security components (VNets, NSGs, firewalls, VPN gateways, application gateways, ExpressRoute, load balancers).
• Monitor network performance, troubleshoot connectivity issues, and optimize for high availability and scalability.
• Manage network security policies, firewalls, and intrusion detection/prevention systems.
• Collaborate with cloud and infrastructure teams to integrate hybrid cloud networking and enforce security best practices.
• Conduct vulnerability assessments and support incident response to minimize risks.
• Develop and maintain technical documentation, network diagrams, and standard operating procedures.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and contribute to continuous improvement initiatives.
• Knowledge of IT infrastructure to work on other projects as required and further the goals of the department and wider business.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in designing and managing office networks.
• Expert knowledge of IP networks, SD WAN, VPNs, sub netting and segment distribution.
• Cisco and Meraki hardware & software (deployment, configuration, troubleshooting).
• Cloud native networking Azure Virtual WAN & security services (Azure Firewall, NSGs, VPN Gateway, load balancer, WAF).
• Proven track record of designing, implementing and managing hybrid on premises and cloud network infrastructures.
• Proven experience designing and managing segmented networks with multiple VPN configurations for diverse client environments.
• Background and experience of owning network solutions within a multisite tenanted organisation.
• Experienced in setting up and using network monitoring tools (SolarWinds, Meraki Dashboard, Cisco Prime, Azure Monitor).
• Familiarity with compliance frameworks (ISO 27001, NIST, GDPR) is a plus.
• Confident in managing and working with third party providers.

At The Office Group, we know that work isn't just about working. We offer all of our employers a fantastic range of benefits, including;

Benefits

• Flexible working hours
• Hybrid working - 4 days in the office, 1 day WFH
• 28 days annual leave
• Birthday leave
• 2 weeks work from anywhere
• Annual leave purchase scheme
• 5% pension scheme
• Life assurance
• Discounted gym membership
• Season ticket loan
• Cycle to work scheme
• 25% discount at Fora cafes