Director of Network Strategy and Planning
Posted Monday, May 16, 2022. Expected to hire by Tuesday, May 31, 2022.
Organizational background
Packet Clearing House is an international not-for-profit organization which was established thirty years ago, at the time of the privatization of the Internet, to support those portions of the Internet critical infrastructure for which for-profit business models are not prevalent: the core of the domain name system, the Internet exchange points from which bandwidth flows, the regulatory and policy environment which governs the Internet's operation, and cybersecurity coordination to ensure its defense. PCH is supported by dozens of governments and hundreds of Internet companies, principally through in-kind donations of equipment, space, power, fiber, and labor, which we utilize to provide and support critical Internet infrastructure and services. We provide services to both the Internet operations industry and governments, and we have ongoing operations in more than 160 countries, all provided on a noncommercial basis.Job description
This is a full-time, salaried, senior position, coordinating PCH's service-provisioning infrastructure deployment. This position has overall responsibility for ensuring that all necessary equipment, connections, services, and labor arrive at the right place at the right time, for each of PCH's new sites, upgrades to existing sites, and the occasional decommissioning of an old site. The principal skill required is project management and the most useful background is in data telecommunications.
As the director of our provisioning group, you would interface with our outreach group (which functions as an intake funnel, qualifying new sites and ensuring that basic criteria are met) and our operations group (which assists by providing equipment configurations, and takes responsibility for each site once provisioning has gotten everything racked-and-stacked and plugged in). In addition to the director, the provisioning group consists of one and a half FTE handling hardware procurement, configuration, and fulfillment; a half-FTE crossconnect specialist; and four half-FTE regional specialists in Asia, Africa/Middle East, Europe, and North America. Organizing, prioritizing, and distributing provisioning work to these specialists, and coordinating their efforts, is the bulk of the job. Acting as the senior point of interface and negotiator with our external partners (datacenter operators, fiber plant operators, equipment vendors) is the remainder.
The principle skills this position requires are project management; diplomatic interaction with external partners; the design, implementation, and refinement of complex workflows; and the ability to work with, and perhaps implement, the software tooling to facilitate all of the above.
This position may be worked from anywhere, but you must have a stable working environment with reliable connectivity, to facilitate predictable availability to direct reports and our peers and colleagues in the many external organizations with which this position interfaces. Travel is optional at your discretion; prior to Covid, we budgeted travel funds for this position to attend NANOG, RIPE, LACNIC, AIS, and APRICOT, and that budget is available for this position and its reports.
This position does not require any particular physical capabilities; all of the physical handling, preparation, and installation of equipment is done by specialists reporting to this position. There is no requirement that you be able to lift a box, nor does this position require sight or hearing; nearly all necessary communication can be via email or text, or may be delegated, with sufficient management.
Our goal is for this to be a 9-to-5 job for you, in whatever timezone you may reside; achieving that depends upon successful delegation of tasks, responsibilities, and external interface to our regional provisioning specialists, who are distributed around the globe (UTC+6, UTC+1 and UTC-8).
Internal to our organization, our working language is English. Externally, we communicate principally in English, but also with our colleagues in other organizations in Spanish, French, Chinese, and Arabic. An ability to communicate at a practical working level in any of those languages is an asset, though by no means required of this position.
This position is available immediately. It is a director-level position, and reports directly to our executive director. As a non-profit, we acknowledge that we're not able to pay salaries competitive with for-profit companies, but all senior staff are paid the same, USD 100,000 per year. We recognize that that salary goes a lot further in places where the cost of living is low, and may not be sufficient to make ends meet in places where the cost of living is high.
Responsibilities
- Overall responsibility for the completion of infrastructure deployment projects
- Drive and manage multiple complex projects simultaneously, including coordination of internal teams and external partners
- Organize, prioritize and distribute provisioning work to our specialists, and coordinate their efforts
- Develop relationships and negotiate with donors, vendors, and partners
- Interface with our outreach group to define the criteria by which they prioritize their work
- Interface with our operations group to define the scope of work for each project
Qualifications
- Five years of experience in the data telecommunications infrastructure industry
- Five years of experience managing cross-functional or cross-team projects
- Experience in delivering network projects consisting of circuits, colocation, power and cross-connects
- Mastery of project management and workflow management tools
- Excellent written communication skills, expressing ideas in a clear, concise, and compelling fashion
- Familiarity with data telecommunications industry norms and operational principles
If you are interested in this position, please email your resume to hr@pch.net. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted. Thank you for your interest in our work.