Systems Engineering Lead (Hybrid)

About Rewards Network

For 41 years, Rewards Network has been helping restaurants grow revenue, increase traffic, and boost customer engagement through innovative financial, marketing services, and premier dining rewards programs. By offering unique card-linked offers, we introduce diners to fantastic restaurant experiences, leveraging advanced technology and data analytics to deliver value to restaurants, diners, and our strategic partners' loyalty programs.

Our Culture

At Rewards Network, you'll be part of a driven and diverse team that excels in collaboration, issue resolution, and taking ownership of both personal growth and the company's success. We take pride in partnering with the world's most powerful loyalty programs to drive full-price paying customers to local restaurants through marketing services and flexible funding options. Our engaging and rewarding environment is designed to help you gain your full potential.

Job Overview

The Network & Systems Engineering Lead is a player-coach role responsible for the technical leadership and operational health of Rewards Network’s network and systems infrastructure. This position combines direct people management of a small, senior engineering team with meaningful hands-on technical contribution, ensuring both day-to-day stability and longer-term infrastructure modernization. The role reports to the Senior Manager, Infrastructure & Site Reliability Engineering and collaborates closely with Security, SRE, DBA, and product engineering teams.

This is a hybrid position that requires in office presence 3 days a week (Tuesday-Thursday) in Chicago.

What you’ll bring to the table: (Responsibilities)

• Lead, develop, and support a team of network and systems engineers; manage performance, career growth, and day-to-day prioritization while remaining technically engaged alongside the team.
• Architect, maintain, and continuously improve on-premises network infrastructure including routing, switching, firewalls, and physical datacenter topology.
• Own the health and reliability of Windows and Linux server environments, including patching cadence, configuration management, and OS lifecycle planning.
• Drive infrastructure modernization initiatives such as datacenter consolidation, network stabilization, and cloud expansion in partnership with the broader engineering organization.
• Lead or contribute to database platform migrations and integrations (MS SQL to PostgreSQL), partnering with DBAs and application teams on planning and execution.
• Collaborate with the AWS-focused SRE team to extend and mature the organization’s cloud infrastructure, with emphasis on networking, security boundaries, and hybrid connectivity.
• Evaluate infrastructure hardware and software options with a cost-conscious, ROI-driven approach; partner with engineering leadership on procurement decisions and vendor selection.
• Establish and maintain runbooks, change control practices, and technical documentation to support reliable operations and audit/compliance requirements.
• Participate in incident response as an escalation point for network and systems issues; conduct root cause analysis and drive durable remediation.
• Manage and evolve virtualization and containerization platforms across on-premises and cloud environments, ensuring efficient resource utilization and alignment with broader infrastructure strategy.
• Contribute to infrastructure roadmap planning by surfacing technical risks, capacity needs, and modernization opportunities to engineering leadership.
• Own disaster recovery planning for network and systems infrastructure; define recovery objectives, maintain runbooks, and lead regular DR testing exercises to validate recoverability.

Do you have the right mix of ingredients

• 5+ years of hands-on experience in network engineering, systems administration, or a combined infrastructure role
• 2+ years in a lead or management capacity with direct reports
• Demonstrated experience with enterprise networking (routing, switching, firewalls, VLANs)
• Proficiency administering Windows Server and Linux/Unix environments
• Working knowledge of AWS or comparable public cloud platform
• Experience supporting or migrating relational databases (SQL Server, PostgreSQL)
• Strong written and verbal communication; able to translate technical concepts for non-technical stakeholders and leadership
• Effective prioritization and time management across people management, project work, and operational response
• Collaborative approach to cross-functional work with engineering, product, security, and finance teams
• Analytical and cost-conscious mindset when evaluating infrastructure decisions and vendor options
• Ability to operate independently and drive initiatives with minimal oversight in a fast-paced environment
• Commitment to documentation, operational rigor, and continuous improvement

What you’ll love about us

Comprehensive benefits package, which includes

• This is a full-time, exempt position. The base salary range for this role in Chicago is $160,000–$200,000 annually, depending on managerial experience (lead and/or manager), as well as technical experience, skills, and other factors. This role is also eligible for an annual bonus target of 10% to 15%.
• Competitive Time Off Benefits: including flexible PTO, 11 company holidays, and parental leave.
• Generous dining reimbursement when you dine with our restaurant clients
• 401(k) plan with a company match
• Two medical plan options- Standard PPO or High Deductible Health Plan (HSA with company match for HDHP participants)
• Partnership with Rx n Go, offering certain prescriptions for free
• Two dental plan options and a vision plan
• Flexible Spending Accounts and a pre-tax commuter benefit program
• Accident, Critical Illness, and Hospital Indemnity Insurance Plans
• Short Term and Long Term disability
• Company-paid life insurance and AD&D insurance, supplemental employee, spouse, and child life insurance
• Employee Life Assistance Program
• Hybrid working environment in a new office space downtown near the Metra Train stations and catered lunches on Tuesdays.

Rewards Network is an Equal Opportunity Employer (EOE). We encourage and strongly support workplace diversity.

Expected Pay Range

$160,000 — $200,000 USD