About this role
Infrastructure Manager
Southampton / Hybrid
£80,000–£85,000
Role Summary
We are a telecommunications provider operating carrier-grade, on-premise infrastructure across four interconnected sites. We maintain our own IP space through RIPE, operate our own ASN and deliver business-critical unified communications and telephony services.
We are looking for an Infrastructure Manager to take senior ownership of our entire network estate and lead the infrastructure team. This is a hands-on leadership role, responsible for network reliability, performance and resilience, as well as team management, operational governance and technical standards.
You will personally own the network, from BGP, RIPE and peering through to routers, switches and carrier relationships, while leading a team of two engineers.
The Environment
Carrier-grade, bare-metal infrastructure across four interconnected sitesFibre ring topology with geographic resilienceMinimal public cloud usageBusiness-critical telecoms and UC servicesGrowing infrastructure team requiring strong technical leadership
Key Responsibilities
Network Ownership
Own and operate the core IP network across all points of presenceManage BGP within our ASN, including peering policy, prefix filtering, traffic engineering and failure recoveryManage RIPE resources, IP allocations and routing policyMaintain peering and interconnects including LONAP, LINX and private linksConfigure and maintain MikroTik and Juniper routers and switchesOwn carrier/provider relationships, escalations and service performanceLead network-level incident response and post-incident RCA Team Leadership
Directly manage two infrastructure engineers with full line management responsibilityRun regular 1:1s, stand-ups and operational reviewsSet priorities, workloads and team schedulesManage holidays and ensure adequate operational coverConduct performance reviews and support professional developmentIdentify and reduce knowledge and capability single points of failureMentor engineers and build a culture of ownership and continuous improvement Operational Governance
Own and enforce change management across infrastructureMaintain incident, escalation and major incident proceduresAct as senior escalation point for P1 and P2 incidentsDrive post-incident reviews, RCA and corrective actionsEnforce standards for backups, patching, vulnerability remediation and access controlOversee disaster recovery and failover testing Documentation & Standards
Maintain accurate network diagrams, runbooks, SOPs and recovery documentationSet documentation standards across the infrastructure teamCoordinate and sign off DR and failover testingProvide senior support for managed customer networks, including Cisco, TP-Link Omada and DrayTek Architecture & Collaboration
Work closely with DevOps and service teams on infrastructure strategyReview and approve architecture proposals and business casesRepresent infrastructure operations in leadership meetings and, where required, present proposals to the boardProvide senior technical input into complex customer network projects and multi-site deployments
Southampton Production Site
Our Southampton office is a secondary production environment, hosting compute infrastructure alongside the business network. It is managed to data-centre standards and forms part of the wider infrastructure estate.
You will:
Own the office network and ensure appropriate reliability, segmentation and resilienceCoordinate network work with the Head of Technical ServicesAct as senior technical authority for network issues at the siteSupport complex, high-value customer network deployments alongside technical and sales/solutions teams
Telecommunications Platforms
Support core telephony and UC platforms and maintain high availabilityLead operational stability and migration readiness across platform layersAct as senior escalation point for platform incidents affecting service continuity
Performance Measures
Success will be measured against:
Network uptime and agreed SLA targetsP1/P2 incident MTTR and restoration timesChange success rate and reduction in failed production changesCompletion and quality of critical documentationQuality and timely closure of RCAs and corrective actionsInfrastructure team performance, development and operational discipline An annual performance bonus is linked to network uptime and operational KPIs. Deductions apply only to outages or service-impacting incidents within the Infrastructure Manager's direct control; third-party provider failures, force majeure and demonstrably external factors are excluded.
Required Experience
Advanced IP networking within carrier, ISP or equivalent production environmentsDeep hands-on BGP experience, including traffic engineering, redundancy and live incident recoveryStrong MikroTik RouterOS and Juniper Junos experienceRIPE resource management and IP administrationProven people management and direct line management experienceStrong operational governance, change control and incident management experienceHigh standards of production documentationExperience managing carriers and third-party network providers
Desirable
Telecoms, ISP or UC service provider experienceOperational experience with Proxmox, Docker or virtualisationExperience mentoring junior/mid-level engineersExperience introducing structured operational practices into a growing team Working Style
We need someone who is:
Hands-on, methodical and reliable in live production environmentsCalm, decisive and accountable under pressureComfortable taking ownership and leading from the frontCollaborative across infrastructure, DevOps, service and development teamsAble to set high standards while supporting and developing their team
Working Hours
Nominally 08:30–17:30, with flexibility expected at this senior level. Out-of-hours support is required on a planned and escalation basis.