Network Manager (Hybrid) Bolingbrook, IL

The Network Systems Manager is responsible for the strategic oversight, design, delivery, and ongoing operation of S&S Activewear's enterprise network infrastructure across all North American locations. This role leads a team of engineers while remaining hands-on in architecture, ensuring secure, scalable, and highly available WAN, LAN, and wireless environments. The position drives modernization initiatives, enforces technical governance, and ensures network performance aligns with business operations across distribution centers, corporate offices, and cloud platforms. This position requires the use of a personal vehicle for work-related travel., * Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing network engineering team.

• Manage day-to-day operations, priorities, and incident response.
• Partner with IT leadership and business stakeholders to align network strategy.
• Establish performance expectations and career development plans.

Network Architecture & Strategy

• Own enterprise network architecture and technical governance.
• Drive segmentation, automation, and cloud integration initiatives.
• Design highly available and resilient network solutions.
• Lead capacity planning and lifecycle roadmaps.

Operations & Service Delivery

• Oversee infrastructure across routers, firewalls, switches, wireless, SD-WAN, and VPN.
• Ensure proactive monitoring, alerting, and observability.
• Lead incident management and root cause analysis.
• Manage WAN circuits and ISP relationships.

Security, Compliance & Governance

• Enforce network security standards and segmentation strategies.
• Align operations with audit and compliance requirements.
• Lead structured change management practices.

Documentation & Standards

• Maintain diagrams, standards, and operating procedures.
• Establish configuration templates and governance standards.

Vendor & Financial Management

• Manage vendor relationships and service contracts.
• Develop and manage infrastructure budgets.

Do you have experience in VPN management?, Do you have a Bachelor's degree?, * 7+ years of network engineering experience.

• 2+ years in a leadership role.
• Strong expertise in routing, switching, firewalls, wireless, VPN, and SD-WAN.
• Experience in multi-site enterprise environments.
• Familiarity with Microsoft Entra ID / Active Directory., * Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field.
• Relevant certifications (Palo Alto, Aruba, Security+).
• Experience with automation or infrastructure-as-code tools.

Core Competencies

• Strategic thinking with hands-on execution.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Excellent communication and collaboration.
• High accountability and adaptability.

Work Environment & Travel

• Support of multi-site operations across the U.S. and Canada.
• Participation in on-call escalation for critical incidents.

Pulled from the full job description

• 401(k)
• Health insurance
• Vision insurance
• Dental insurance
• Flexible spending account
• Life insurance
• Disability insurance, We offer a comprehensive benefits package designed to support your life, health, and future. Benefits begin 0-90 days after hire and include Vacation, Personal, and Sick time; Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance, and Disability coverage; Flexible Spending Accounts; and a 401(k) plan. You'll also enjoy discounts on brand-name apparel, fun employee events, and meaningful opportunities for growth and advancement. Join a company that invests in you from day one

S&S Activewear is a leading North American, tech enabled specialty distributor of imprintable apparel, including t shirts, fleece, athletic wear, headwear, workwear, scrubs and accessories. We pride ourselves on being the "critical link" that enables our 100+ brand partners such as Adidas, Columbia and Gildan to reach our hyper fragmented base of customers, comprised of apparel decorators, eRetailers and promotional products distributors that embellish apparel items for diverse end consumer use cases (e.g., everyday wear, concerts, fitness attire, life events, team sports, etc.). At S&S, we differentiate in the market through a customer service focus, strategic product portfolio, world class distribution infrastructure, a collaborative growth culture and a relentless focus on technology and innovation. Our success has compounded since the Company's humble beginnings in 1988 as a regional t shirt distributor to a leading, multibillion dollar value-added distribution platform that drives market penetration for our suppliers while enabling growth, operations and fulfillment for a diverse range of customers across channels and business sizes. Today, we continue to strive to be the apparel distributor of choice by inspiring and fostering growth for customers, employees and suppliers, anchored in our commitment to Lead with Respect, Never Settle, Own the Outcome, Win Together, and the belief that Innovation Powers Our Hustle. These values guide how we serve, how we collaborate and how we continuously improve, ensuring we deliver on our promise of service, deep relationships, innovation, continuous improvement and accountability.