Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE) located in Washington, D.C., is one of the largest integrated sports and entertainment companies in the country with one of the most diverse partnership groups in all of sports. MSE owns and operates six professional sports teams: 2018 NHL Stanley Cup Champion Washington Capitals, NBA’s Washington Wizards, WNBA’s 2019 Champion Washington Mystics, NBA G League’s Capital City Go-Go, the 2021 & 2020 NBA 2K League Champion Wizards District Gaming and Caps Gaming, an esports sub-brand of the Capitals. Additionally, it holds a significant investment in a seventh team, Team Liquid, an endemic esports team owned and operated by aXiomatic.
In September 2022, MSE acquired full ownership of NBC Sports Washington from Comcast and NBCUniversal and now holds the exclusive local television media rights to Capitals’ and Wizards’ games. The integration is underway including extensive renovations to a new, pioneering production and broadcasting space to deliver seamless experiences on linear and digital platforms for fans. Under the terms of the agreement, MSE also acquired Comcast and NBCUniversal’s remaining interest in Monumental Sports Network, a first-of-its-kind regional sports network for digital, mobile and over-the-top platforms that launched in 2016.
Monumental Sports owns and operates Capital One Arena (COA), a 20,000+ capacity live event venue in Washington, D.C. MSE also manages MedStar Capitals Iceplex, the state-of-the-art training facility for the Capitals and EagleBank Arena on George Mason University’s campus.
In conjunction with the District of Columbia and Events DC, MSE is a partner in Entertainment & Sports Arena (ESA), in Southeast D.C. on the St. Elizabeth’s East campus which opened in September 2018. ESA houses the MedStar Health Performance Center, the training center for the Wizards, Go-Go and Mystics, and a 4,200-seat arena which serves as the home of the Mystics and Go-Go.
In July 2020, MSE opened the first ever in-arena sportsbook in North America, through a partnership with then William Hill (now Caesars Entertainment), with a temporary location set-up within the COA lobby. The permanent location for the Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill opened within COA in May 2021.
And in January 2022, MSE announced it would be opening District E, powered by Ticketmaster, in the first quarter of 2023. This flagship venue for esports and entertainment is the largest on the East Coast: a premier, nearly 14,000-square-foot live-event theater offering a 365-day-a-year, series of immersive experiences in esports, music, event programming, and community events – along with pre- and post-event activations for fans attending Capitals and Wizards games or events. This space will entertain hundreds for independent events, offer an extraordinary culinary experience, and will create a best-in-class competition and training venue for the MSE esports franchises which it owns, operates, and invests in.
MSE proudly promotes its core values for all those that interact with the company. As a member of our team:
- You will provide first-class customer service and value for our fans.
- You will champion a double-bottom line that engages, unifies and gives back to the community we serve.
- You will work tirelessly to build generationally exceptional teams that compete for championships year after year and create lifelong memories for our fans.
- You will measure performance with specific objectives and metrics and our analysis and decisions are compelled by data.
- You will prize leadership, but you should value teamwork and collaboration and transparency even more. We treat each other with respect. We act with honesty and integrity. We remain humble.
- You will innovate. We are nimble and first to market. We are not averse to risk.
- You will have fun. We are in the business of happiness.
Position Overview: The Principal Network Engineer will serve as a senior hands-on member of the Technology team to plan, design, deploy, and support the enterprise data and media networks. We are looking for an experienced network and security engineer with a solid technical background to help us transform the MSE networks. This role will be responsible for the design, delivery, and operation of critical fan and employee connectivity services. Working with peers, management, vendors, and project managers to deliver solutions, maintain network services, mentor junior team members, and provide support for the Media and Engineering Operations team.
Are you looking to be an integral team leader and engineering/technical resource on innovative next generation enterprise-wide network/infrastructure projects? We'd love to hear from you!
Responsibilities:
- Design, configure and deploy company LANs, WANs, SD-WAN, stadium wireless networks including routers switches, firewalls, secure proxies, load balancers and audio/video platforms including the SMPTE-2110 compliant broadcast networks.
- Design/deploy/upgrade/support network monitoring, problem solving, performance optimization and reporting.
- Design, deploy and support wireless, video conferencing and IP-based voice solutions.
- Provide and implement network security best processes using a combination of technologies such as VPNs/encryption, firewalls, secure proxies, IDS/IPS and secure network design methodology.
- Configure routers/switches, firewalls, VPNs, application load balancers, secure proxies, quality of service designs and multicast video/audio over IP networks.
- Translate technical requirements into functional designs and engineering solutions for existing and developmental workflows.
- Conduct network security, performance, and stability tests to assure optimal end user experience.
- Stay abreast of industry trends to proactively identify areas for growth, improvement, and development with the capability to implement industry standard methodologies.
- Use advanced problem solving skills and tools to address network performance issues.
- Establish and maintain customer configuration management and documentation requirements.
- Provide tier 3 support for all networks.
- Produce required documentation prior to system hand off to the operations team.
- Write and maintain documentation in reference to equipment installation and operation.
- Lead multiple projects in various phases of development and attend related vendor meetings to track development path.
- Provide final partner concern support and guidance to operations team.
- Other duties as assigned.
Minimum Qualifications:
- 10+ years experience as a planning, design, implementation and technical support of multi-vendor, multi-platform enterprise networks ideally in a broadcast field or similar 24/7 customer facing enterprise.
- Experience with routing protocols: IGMP, BGP, OSPF, MPLS, VRF, VPNs, EVPN-BGP, and VXLAN.
- Significant experience providing layered security using firewalls, VPNs, encryption, IDS/IPS and secure proxies.
- Detailed knowledge of 802.11 wireless technology standards – 802.11b/a/n/ac/ax/be.
- Network security and automation experience preferred.
- Experience with systems documentation and operational procedures.
- Experience working with multi-functional teams and partners.
- Experience with supporting collocated networks, Cloud Service Providers, AWS, Azure Google Cloud Platform, etc. is a plus.
- IP networking certification required (CCNA/CCDA/CCIE/JNCIA/JNCIE/ACE-A).
- Ability to balance and prioritize tasks in a dynamic, fast-paced environment.
- Outstanding interpersonal skills, written and verbal communication skills, and creative writing ability; able to work effectively with staff at all levels.
- Strong organizational skills and attention to details.
- Positive demeanor and good work ethic.
- Ability to work independently with minimal supervision and direction as well as in a team environment.
- Availability to travel for assignments.
- Good public speaking and presentation skills.
- Commitment to “internal clients” and customer service principles.
- Willingness to take initiative and to follow through on projects.
Technical Skills:
- Protocols such as IGMP, BGP, OSPF, MPLS, VRF, VPNs, EVPN-BGP, VXLAN, IPv4, IPv6, VxLAN, DNS, DHCP, MPLS, SSL.
- Extensive experience with IP Multicast – dense mode, sparse mode (RPs/BSRs) and source specific multicast.
- Expert knowledge of the following protocols and technologies: IP routing protocols, router redundancy protocols including HSRP/VRRP/MLAG, Ethernet protocols including spanning tree, rapid spanning tree 802.1W, access control, network address translation, quality of service and policy-based routing.
- Routers and switches such as Cisco Nexus or Arista.
- Experience with SND and SDWAN technologies, such as Silverpeak, Prisma, Meraki or VMware preferred.
- Experienced knowledge with firewalls/ACL/encryption/VPN technology – Palo Alto, Fortinet or Cisco ASA/Firepower and associated protocols (IPSEC/GRE) and secure proxy functions.
- SNMP, NTP, TACACS/RADIUS, Syslog and other critical network management/administration protocols.
- Application and load balancing products and technologies.
- Extensive experience in a multi-vendor network architecture.
- Experience provisioning and solving Ethernet, MPLS and other WAN technologies.
- Fully versed in common Internet services such as DNS, SSL, HTTP, etc.
- Experience with Video/Audio over IP transmission, familiarity with signal flow within in broadcast/IT facility, and HVAC, Electrical, Mechanical, and data center systems.
- Able to understand routing logic, signal flow and various systems of the signal path.
We are an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
