Lead Systems Engineer & Network Architect

Company: Orchard
Location: Baltimore
Posted on: April 3, 2026

Job Description:

Lead Systems Engineer & Network Architect Baltimore, Maryland – Hybrid Work Must be eligible to work in the United States – no visa sponsorship available @Orchard LLC is seeking a top technical talent to be the senior Architect and Engineer on the Infrastructure Team supporting the Maryland Department of Health (MDH). This is a hands-on technical role, with supervisory responsibilities for a team of Systems Engineers and ancillary team members. The role is an opportunity to demonstrate technical capabilities, along with mentoring, management, and leadership, while supporting a 24/7/365 patient-care environment. This is a hybrid-work role with 2-3 days a week spent onsite in Baltimore City, MD. You must be willing to support the client if needed, fixing issues off-hours and on weekends to maintain uptime. About the Project The Maryland Department of Health (MDH), Office of Enterprise Technology (OET) is responsible for the design, installation, performance, management, and troubleshooting of all aspects of networking infrastructure, down to the switch port, for its more than 35 locations located across Maryland’s 24 local jurisdictions. This includes a Datacenter with a Cisco HyperFlex environment, as well as office buildings, local health departments, and 24x7x365 inpatient care facilities. MDH OET utilizes Cisco products for routing, switching, wireless networking, remote access, security hardening, and network monitoring. As the Lead Systems Engineer & Network Architect, you will. Lead network architecture and design, including scalability and capacity planning, hardware evaluation and selection, and designing efficient infrastructure solutions to meet organizational needs. Configure, test, and deploy Cisco network infrastructure equipment; maintain the Cisco Catalyst Center environment. Manage security and compliance by configuring, updating, administering, and troubleshooting Firepower appliances and Cisco ISE. Ensure all network infrastructure components meet required security and regulatory standards. Provide leadership and mentorship by leading large-scale migrations and hardware refresh projects end-to-end. Coach junior and mid-level engineers to enhance technical skills. Contribute technical input for annual IT budget planning. Act as the final point of escalation for network issues and troubleshooting. Utilize monitoring tools to identify bottlenecks and optimize network performance. Collaborate on disaster recovery planning, including creating and testing failover strategies to ensure high availability Your background will include. Required: Bachelor's degree in Systems Engineering, CIS, Business Administration, or a related technical discipline. A Master’s degree is preferred. At least three (3) years of experience supervising system engineers. Demonstrated experience with interactive and interpretive systems, including online, real-time data acquisition capabilities. Must possess a current Enterprise CCIE Enterprise Infrastructure certification. Strong knowledge and hands-on experience in the following areas: o Routing protocols: BGP, OSPF, EIGRP o Network technologies: VLANs, VPC, STP • Security protocols and architecture: IPsec, SSL/TLS, Zero Trust o Cisco Nexus platforms o Cloud connectivity solutions: Direct Connect, ExpressRoute o VoIP protocols: SCCP, SIP, H.323, MGCP, RTP, SRTP, QSIG o Cisco security solutions: ASA, FirePower, ISE, AnyConnect o Quality of Service (QoS) o Infrastructure as Code tools: Cisco Catalyst Center, Terraform o Monitoring tools: SolarWinds, NetFlow, Catalyst Center, SNMP o Troubleshooting and issue resolution Compensation: The base salary for the role will be determined based on experience and qualifications. Full medical benefits, 401K, and PTO are provided. @Orchard LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or protected veteran status, and will not be discriminated against based on disability.

Keywords: Orchard, Philadelphia , Lead Systems Engineer & Network Architect, IT / Software / Systems , Baltimore, Pennsylvania