Senior Lead Network Engineer - Network Data and Inventory

About the role

Forged Fiber, an open-access fiber network provider, is hiring a Senior Lead Network Engineer for its Network Data and Inventory function, based in Dallas, Texas or Denver, Colorado on a hybrid basis. The role combines hands-on telecommunications engineering with data engineering and advanced analytics, focusing on production data and inventory analysis. You will be the primary authority for OLT, fiber access, Metro Ethernet and transport network datasets, keeping network platforms aligned with enterprise inventory systems such as NetBox, Optius/Odin and related asset management tools.

Key responsibilities

• Lead the collection, validation, analysis and governance of Fiber OLT, Metro and transport network production datasets, ensuring their accuracy and integrity.
• Build operational reporting, dashboards and metrics for network assets and service delivery using Power BI, Tableau, Looker and Python or R visualisation libraries.
• Own inventory governance, reconcile inventory data with NetBox, Optius/Odin and other systems, and lead record clean-up, digitisation and migration of legacy as-built drawings, route records and lease information.
• Set standards and controls for inventory lifecycle management, data maintenance and audit readiness.
• Act as subject matter expert for inventory platforms, define requirements and functional specifications, and design data pipelines, ETL/ELT processes, APIs and data warehouse integrations.
• Enforce data quality and reporting standards, develop automation (Python, SQL, PL/SQL, Power Automate) and build machine learning pipelines and predictive models.
• Lead inventory transformation, data governance and reporting initiatives, mentor engineers, analysts, contractors and technicians, and use network cost and capacity data to support capital planning and bidding.

Required profile

• Expert knowledge of telecommunications network infrastructure, including Fiber OLT, access, transport, dark fiber, outside plant and Metro networks.
• Proven experience managing and analysing production network datasets and inventory information, and with inventory reconciliation and data governance.
• Experience with NetBox, Optius/Odin or comparable inventory systems.
• Outside plant and network implementation experience, data quality and governance expertise, and modern data science skills.

Required skills

• Advanced SQL (complex joins, window functions, PL/SQL) and Python (Pandas, NumPy, PySpark, scikit-learn); R is a plus.
• Building and automating ETL/ELT workflows and data pipelines across relational and cloud databases such as PostgreSQL, Oracle and SQL Server.