Manager, SD-WAN R&D

Telework options: hybrid on site – remote (up to 3 days home office per week)

Looking for an exciting and permanent job in a fast-growing high-tech company, offering an international Team with the opportunity and a great environment?

Job Context

For over 20 years, Ekinops has been driving innovation in network systems. We provide solutions focused on the needs of communication service providers and enterprises worldwide. We provide open, trusted and innovative network connectivity and enable our customers’ success by delivering high value-added software-driven solutions. Today, over 120 international service providers, including numerous Tier 1 carriers around the world, trust our people and technologies. Over 50% of our near 500-strong team works in our multi-national Agile R&D centers. Our company has a strong international background, with sales offices strategically located around the world.  Ekinops is recognized for its ESG commitments with considerable improvement in ESG rating following 2022 Gaïa campaign and Silver Medal by EcoVadis

Job Description

The manager of the SD-WAN R&D activities of Ekinops leads all Ekinops R&D teams developing SD-WAN solutions leveraging the OneOS6 product lines of Access and Edge networks. This role reports to the Senior Director of SDx and Cloud activities. She/He coordinates efforts from an international team to reach operational objectives and delivers the company’s strategy and vision, while ensuring that each member of the team feels well and performs at her/his best.

She/He has full accountability for developing and delivering the following:

• Ekinops SD-WAN management software designed to be run on Docker based virtualized environment for on premise and cloud deployments,
• Telco grade solution for Tier 1 customers and multi-tenant users,
• Highly secured and scalable solutions interconnecting thousands of OneOS6 based equipment

Job content

• Manages an international team of 25+, split between Massy, Lannion (France), Leuven (Belgium) and Bangalore (India).
• Hires, motivates, trains, develops and coaches assigned personnel in accordance with HR Group policies and corporate strategic objectives.
• Is accountable to ensure that her/his teams deliver on time, on budget and with the right level of quality.
• Stays up-to-date with the latest SD-WAN and cloud-native technologies, as well as competition in our domain, while also delivering compelling values.
• Fosters innovation in her/his organization
• Develops and promotes a strong vision for the Ekinops SD-WAN portfolio in order to accelerate our growth and seize a significant piece of the market especially in virtualization of the enterprise branch offices and in edge computing.
• Accelerates the Cloud and Edge Cloud technology integrations to execute the SD-WAN roadmap.
• Stays up-to-date with Ekinops corporate strategy and vision, translates these into concrete objectives for each of her/his direct reports.
• Empowers her/his teammates.
• Assesses efforts and allocates resources, in line with the company priorities and directions, and in full alignment with Agile Masters leading the Agile “squads” in which her/his team members are assigned.
• Ensures daily follow-up of activities, acts as a coach to her/his staff, helps them in case of difficulties (or seeks help from outside the team), re-prioritizes, takes decisions and arbitrates when needed.
• Holds regular one-to-one meetings with each of her/his direct reports and some periodic one-to-one with the team members.
• Is able to alert her/his management and anticipates any risk of delay or over cost or quality issues. Is able to implement and drive contingency plans to recover, potentially leveraging and driving resources outside her/his activity.
• Supports top management decisions and ensures they are applied in a timely manner.
• Manages the activity budgets, from budget construction to follow-up. Is able to build financial analyses, with support from Finance department, to ensure we take the best investment decisions. Works closely with Procurement department.
• Writes and reviews job descriptions and leads the hiring process for her/his activities. Ensures that her/his activities are fully staffed in line with approved budget. Ensures new colleagues integrate well the company.
• Interacts with other stakeholders in the company on a very regular basis ensuring transversal alignment and managing external dependencies: R&D, CSO/FTE, PMO, PLM, Manufacturing, Procurement.

Profile and skills

• MSc or MEng degree in Telecommunications, Data Science or Computer Science
• Very strong knowledge in Cloud, Virtualization, Telecom technologies
• Masters Routing and Networking: BGP, IPsec, IPS/IDS, Linux networking, and any Yang/Netconf based configurations for any of the Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, Ekinops, Nokia equipment
• Understands highly scalable web frameworks made of PHP, JavaScript, HTML5, Python technologies
• Strong experience in software development using git and DevOps practices
• Knowledge of private or public cloud is a plus : Open stack, Proxmox, Azure, AWS, GCP, VMWare
• Background with Linux based containers: Docker, Kubernetes, OpenShift.
• Good understanding of the Opensource environments, if possible, with some contributions to some community activities.
• Very good technical background in IP, Routing and network protocols
• Strong team management experience of R&D, Engineering or IT departments
• Previous experience in working in international environments
• Previous experience in working in agile organizations, with ideally some experience as Product Owner or Scrum Master
• Strong strategic and customer focus
• 5 years’ + experience in a managerial position, ideally with staff located abroad
• Fluent in English and French

At a personal level, you will also demonstrate

• Management skills and excellent team spirit
• Curious and willing to learn.
• Analytical skills
• Business acumen
• Leadership and good communication
• Ability to drive changes
• Empathy and listening skills
• Openness to other cultures

Package

• Attractive salary
• Possibility to work remotely 3 days per week
• Profit sharing program
• Meal subsidy or meal voucher

Recruitment process 

3 interviews

• 1^st with Department manager/Team leader
• 2^nd interview with HR
• 3^rd interview with Senior Director/C-Level/VP