Open to remote roles · EMEA & UK
Neofit Solovan
Network Engineer / BGP & OSPF WAN · Nexus & Arista · Wireless · AWS
Network engineer with 12+ years in enterprise and multi-site networks, after starting in ISP support in 2006. At Interpublic Group I look after about 1,000 routers and switches: EMEA day to day, plus North America, LATAM and APAC on call. That covers Cisco Nexus and Arista data-centre switching and a BGP carrier WAN. I lead projects from hardware spec to go-live, with hands-on AWS networking and Python automation.
~1,000routers and switches in scope, across EMEA, NA, LATAM and APAC
21EMEA countries with offices supported
500+hotel networks rolled out or upgraded at KCP
2006hands-on in networking since
// skills
What I work with
Routing & WAN
Switching & Data Centre
Wireless
Security & Access
Cloud & Automation
Monitoring & Operations
// experience
Where I’ve worked
Senior Network Administrator
Interpublic Group (IPG), acquired by Omnicom in Nov 2025 · Jan 2023 – Present
Remote from Romania with the UK-based team; rejoined the same team after relocating.
- Responsible for about 1,000 routers and switches: 60 EMEA offices (278 devices) day to day, plus North America, LATAM and APAC (~750 devices) on call.
- Build and operate the hub-and-spoke WAN (London, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Tel Aviv): eBGP with Colt, GTT and Zayo at the hubs, iBGP over an OSPF underlay in the new EMEA routing standard.
- Commission Cisco Nexus switches in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Tel Aviv (OSPF, BGP, static and VRF routing, vPC, HSRP); manage Arista DCS-7050 switches in the Equinix data centres in Milan and Madrid.
- Deliver P2P circuits with Colt and GTT: handoff and demarc specs, fibre patching via on-site colleagues or remote hands, testing and commissioning.
- Deployed Catalyst 9800-CL controllers in AWS and provisioned VPCs with CloudFormation; assisted with AWS Direct Connect provisioning through Equinix.
- Lead network onboarding of acquired companies: hardware, subnet allocation in Infoblox IPAM, configuration to IPG standards; plus office moves and migrations.
- Automate bulk changes across hundreds of devices with Python (Netmiko, Paramiko) and Bash/Expect: CISO vulnerability fixes, SNMP and ACL updates, banners, config backups.
- Raise change requests in BMC Remedy/Helix and implement approved changes out of hours.
DevOps Engineer
ASSIST Software · Romania · Oct 2022 – Jan 2023
- Helped plan a client’s AWS environment and its site-to-site VPN to the client’s on-premises network.
Senior Network Administrator
Interpublic Group (IPG) · London, UK · promoted from Network Administrator in 2021 · May 2017 – Sep 2022
- Technical lead for wireless surveys, office onboarding after acquisitions, office moves and migrations across 21 EMEA countries, from Portugal to the UAE and South Africa.
- Managed Cisco ISR 4000 / ASR 1000 routers, Catalyst and Nexus 5K/9K switches and Cisco wireless controllers, monitored with Cisco Prime, SolarWinds and DNA Center.
- Implemented new P2P links (including on-site fibre patching), GRE/IPsec tunnels and failover.
- On-call support for all offices across North America, LATAM and EMEA.
Network Engineer
KCP-Ltd (Swisscom / Hoist Group partner) · Windsor, UK · Feb 2014 – May 2017
- Configured Cisco, HP, Huawei, Aruba and Ruckus networks, scripting bulk changes with Bash/Expect.
- Ran live upgrades and renumbering with minimal downtime, and resolved incidents within SLA.
- Supported Dell servers remotely through iDRAC, and Linux Debian servers.
Network Support Engineer / Technical Support Engineer
RCS & RDS (Digi) · Suceava, Romania · Jun 2007 – Jan 2014
- 2nd/3rd-line troubleshooting for ISP customers: PPPoE, DHCP, MPLS, radio, GPON, FTTH, FTTB and EoC.
- Part of a 24/7 technical team, coordinating infrastructure engineers and closing tickets within SLA.
- Configured Cisco Catalyst switches and routers; monitored devices and circuits with Cacti, MRTG and Nagios.
Field Technician
SC Netcom Impex SRL · 2006 – 2007
- Fixed customer internet faults on site at customers’ homes for a local ISP.
// projects
Selected projects
Cisco → Mist wireless refresh
Helped replace Cisco 3802 APs with Mist AP45/AP47 across EMEA: predictive surveys, AP sizing to coverage standards, vendor quotes, network prep and go-live.
juniper mist · wireless design · IPG
Friday v2: network monitoring
Built a Python/Flask app when SolarWinds was retired, seeded with its Cisco device inventory, giving the team network diagrams and colour-coded device status.
python · flask · IPG
Mist companion app
A Flask app on the Mist API that exports AP inventory per site and schedules AP restarts at a set time, which the Mist portal does not support.
python · flask · mist api · IPG
London hub move to Equinix (2018–2019)
Contributed to moving the London hub from Colt’s Volt Avenue data centre to Equinix: new Nexus and Palo Alto hardware, new P2P circuits for every UK office, interconnects to Milan, Paris and Madrid, and VPN rework for sites without P2P.
nexus · palo alto · p2p · IPG
MWG Israel integration (2020–2022)
Took over the network for all 5 offices in Israel and built a new country hub through COVID delays and the chip shortage: hardware spec, vendor quotes and SmartNet, configuration, go-live and migration with minimal downtime.
cisco · bgp · migration · IPG
Hotel networks at scale (2014–2016)
Scandic: Wi-Fi roll-out for 143 hotels in 8 countries. Rezidor: renumbering and controller upgrade for 170 hotels. Accor UK: live PCI-DSS upgrade for 97 hotels. Plus Wi-Fi roll-outs for 99 hotels at Accor Benelux, Rica and NH.
multi-vendor · wi-fi · pci-dss · KCP
// certifications
Certifications
valid until Jun 2028
AWS Solutions Architect – Associate
Amazon Web Services · SAA-C03
valid until Nov 2028
Specialist – Enterprise Core
Cisco
valid until Nov 2028
Specialist – Enterprise Advanced Infrastructure
Cisco
previously held
Terraform Associate, CCNP & CCNA Routing and Switching
HashiCorp · Cisco
// education
Education & languages
Bachelor of Engineering, Computer Science
Ștefan cel Mare University of Suceava · 2007 – 2011
Cisco Networking Academy (CCNA Exploration)
Ștefan cel Mare University of Suceava · 2011 – 2013
Languages
English (fluent) · Romanian (native)
Let’s talk.
Looking for a remote network engineering role with a company anywhere in EMEA or the UK. I’m an EU citizen based in Romania, on EET, with the right to work in the UK (settled status), and I’ve worked in and with UK teams since 2014. Open to employment, Employer of Record or B2B contract. Email is the fastest way to reach me.