Description
The NOC Director provides strategic leadership and operational oversight for the company's 24x7x365 Network Operations Center (NOC). This role is accountable for the overall performance, scalability, and reliability of the company's transport network and for ensuring exceptional incident response, network monitoring, and service assurance. The NOC Director leads multiple NOC teams and managers, drives organizational process excellence, and partners closely with cross-functional leaders to strengthen the company's network operations posture.
Success in this role requires strong executive leadership, the ability to drive long-term operational strategy, deep technical understanding of complex network environments, and the capability to foster a high-performance culture. The NOC Director must anticipate operational needs, lead through rapid change, effectively communicate across all levels of the organization—including executives and customers—and ensure the NOC consistently delivers world-class service.
Essential Job Functions
Strategic Leadership & Operations Management
* Provide strategic direction to the NOC organization, ensuring alignment with broader network, engineering, and corporate goals.
* Lead, mentor, and develop NOC Managers and senior staff; build a high-performing, customer-focused culture.
* Oversee 24x7x365 NOC operations, ensuring service levels, incident response, escalation handling, and network availability meet or exceed expectations.
* Establish and manage departmental KPIs, SLAs, and operational goals, ensuring continuous performance monitoring with data-driven improvements.
* Create multi-year operational plans to support network growth, modernization, and meet capacity demands.
Process, Policy, and Performance Management
* Develop, implement, and maintain NOC policies, processes, and best practices to optimize workflow efficiency, network reliability, and organizational scalability.
* Lead root-cause analysis (RCA) and post-incident review processes; ensure corrective actions are implemented and validated.
* Drive initiatives that improve customer experience, reduce network downtime, and enhance overall service quality.
* Evaluate and implement new tools, technologies, and automation to improve incident management, monitoring capabilities, and operational efficiency.
Cross-Functional Collaboration
* Serve as the primary liaison between the NOC and internal groups such as Engineering, Field Operations, IT, Customer Support, and Executive Leadership.
* Coordinate complex escalations, outage management bridges, and high-visibility customer events across multiple departments.
* Partner with Engineering on change management, network upgrades, architecture planning, and reliability improvements.
Customer & Executive Communication
* Act as a key escalation point for critical customer issues and network events; ensure timely, accurate, and professional communication.
* Lead internal and external performance review calls, operational briefings, and executive reporting.
* Ensure communication around incidents, maintenance, and performance is consistent, clear, and aligned with customer and business expectations.
Reporting & Compliance
* Develop and maintain departmental reporting, dashboards, and operational reviews for leadership and customers.
* Ensure compliance with industry standards, security requirements, and operational best practices.
* Manage departmental budgeting, resource planning, and staffing strategies to support growing operational demands.
Requirements
* Bachelor's Degree in Telecommunications, Engineering, Network Operations, or a related field—or equivalent experience.
* 8+ years of experience supporting or managing communications networks, with a strong understanding of transport, IP networking, and service assurance.
* 5+ years of leadership experience in NOC, Network Operations, or related technical operations roles, including managing managers and large teams.
* Demonstrated ability to build and lead high-performing organizations with strong accountability and customer-centric focus.
* Exceptional executive-level communication and presentation skills; able to convey technical information to both technical and non-technical audiences.
* Proven success managing crisis situations, large-scale outages, and complex stakeholder groups.
* Experience developing operational strategy, implementing process improvements, and driving organizational change.