Punit Patel
Ringoes
Summary
Professional leader with extensive experience in driving strategic initiatives and fostering effective team collaboration. Strong background in project management, budget oversight, and stakeholder engagement, ensuring organizational goals are met efficiently. Known for adaptability, reliability, and focus on achieving impactful results. Skilled in leveraging data-driven insights, optimizing processes, and mentoring teams to excel in dynamic environments.
Overview
17
17
years of professional experience
Work History
Associate Director - Orchestration Engineering
Verizon
08.2022 - Current
- Fostered a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging staff to share innovative ideas and providing resources for professional development.
- Mentored junior staff members, providing guidance on professional development opportunities and career progression paths within the company.
- Oversaw annual budget planning processes, ensuring financial goals were met while maintaining optimal resource allocation across departments.
- Lead of a team of technical experts accountable for software development of ansible automation scripts for CNF's and VNF's (LTE, 4G, 5GC) being deployed onto VCP Edge and VCP Core
- Engineered initiative to reduce time to re-certify Network Functions from 4 weeks to 2-3 days and certification of NEW Network Functions from 10 weeks to 4 weeks.
- Responsible for 99.99% availability, CI/CD and stakeholder support for NF Marketplace
- Supported vRAN teams who utilize Marketplace to achieve 10k vDU (Samsung) upgrades in a single Maintenance Window.
- Piloted first ever Orchestration & Automation Quarterly Review sessions with stakeholders to provide insight on the Orchestration and Automation ecosystem.
- Collaborated with Security planning teams to launch dashboards for CVE's and inject automation to strengthen Security for Marketplace
- Mentored, Developed and Coached 6 Interns from various colleges as part of Verizon's Internship program.
- Successfully led the team to launch key business critical initiatives for Marketplace including Cybervault, Blackduck for VNF's, as well as improved deployment of Marketplace by introducing new automation.
- Enhanced support for stakeholders by introducing automation within Slack to auto-generate AYS and Jira tickets reducing swivel chair.
- Chartered conversations with Maintenance Engineering, HQ Planning, Oracle and Nokia vendors by providing requirements and developing processes for delivering and certifying Automation CSAR packages for critical 5GC NFs that included SLF, BSF, NRF, PCF, SCP and CHF.
Associate Director - VCP Edge Engineering
Verizon
07.2019 - 07.2022
- Capacity planning and management for VCP Edge Infrastructure across 52 SAP locations
- Support 70+ cloud applications (LTE, 4G, 5G) during on-boarding, Deployment and migration from EOL hardware
- Provide executive updates on VCP Edge infrastructure readiness, utilization, application capacity and software readiness (Openstack & Webscale) on monthly cadence
- Maintain a $500M-$350M Capital expense budget for VCP Edge infrastructure build out and $10M Operational expense budget for software deployment/licensing
- Vendor management across WWT, Saturn, NetApp and Red Hat to ensure timeline delivery of hardware, minor materials, software and support
- Support 5G (SA and NSA) deployment and scaling for SMF, UPF, AMF and other CRITICAL applications on VCP Edge infrastructure.
- Support and work alongside vRAN application teams to ensure capacity and resource availability.
- Collaborate with VCP Edge Planning teams to provide feedback on existing infrastructure and plan for future infrastructure
Principal Engineering - Network Implementation
Verizon
11.2016 - 07.2019
- Lead development, testing and deployment of vMPN (Virtual Mobile Private Network) on the VCP Edge platform via manual and orchestration instantiation methods
- Lead design, development, testing and nationwide deployment of vPGW (Virtual Packet Gateway) on VCP Edge Platform
- Responsible for weekly/daily updates for quarterly/yearly project initiatives via Confluence/Jira
- Served as the single point of contact for VCP Edge build out and on-boarding process of virtual applications (4G/5G)
- Coordinated and tracked the VCP-Edge build for 52 SAP locations to ensure readiness for virtual application on-boarding
- Coordinated and tracked VCP-Edge application progress towards eNSE design, lab testing, off-load plans and drove the teams towards completion to ensure minimal impact from an application and site point of view
- Generated and delivered weekly program status’ and initiatives for VCP Edge
- Created and presented the VCP Refresher training for fellow peers which outlined application on-boarding process from a scrum master perspective
- Interim scrum master for the eNSE Program to fill in while Primary Scrum Master was on leave
- Generated weekly program status’ and initiatives for eNSE
- Lead scrum master for MPN 5G vertical services including Enterprise, Wholesale and Public Safety Gateways.
- Coordinate and track VCP Edge expansion (Compute & Storage) for all 52 SAP locations to support business critical initiatives including 5G vRAN (Nokia & Samsung) deployment
- Lead nationwide deployment of i-VPP for vPGW to allow for High Speed CALEA support on the 5G core network
Sr. Technician - Wireless NMC Project Management
Verizon
10.2014 - 11.2016
- Single point of contact for 6 NOC applications and tools
Resource role for NNO projects; eMBMS, VICE: Multiple Endpoint & SPC 5.0 & VCP - Constructed and managed UAT testing for new and existing NOC applications and tools
- Piloted first ever Process Mapping flow charts for RAN, NMC Systems, Lead and IMS roles within the NOC
- Responsible for weekly updates to NOC related applications and projects
- Held bi-weekly meetings with NOC Management teams on new enhancement request submitted by technicians
- Responsible for “Next Step” of implementation for NOC applications, projects and enhancements requests
- Compiled, maintained and communicated various playbooks, policies and procedures to NOC personnel
- Stakeholder responsibilities for various NOC projects
Supervisor - Wireless NMC
Verizon
02.2012 - 10.2014
- Compiled and maintained performance documents for 15 direct reports and 6 student interns
- Led 25+ on-shift technicians on a daily basis
- Conducted bi-weekly staff meetings
- Completed administrative duties such as Timesheets, Approval of Training Requests, Vacation Requests and Schedule Requests in a timely matter
- Communicated EOC (Emergency Operations Center) emails to various regional personnel during natural disasters impacting the network
- Successfully launched Training Tab project which was developed by student interns and is being utilized by both Network Operations Centers
- Developed and promoted 3 direct reports; 2 promotions within the NOC and 1 promotion to Region
- Graduated from Verizon's Pre-Leader program
Lead Technician - Wireless NMC
Verizon
02.2008 - 03.2010
- Responsible for monitoring Verizon Wireless’ switching network from a centralized Network Operations Center (NOC) ensuring high availability and attainment of service levels.
- Effectively communicate and escalate alarms to ensure quick resolution; utilizing a network management system via computer terminals to detect and analyze alarms; and completing trouble tickets to document equipment issues.
- Reporting and escalating alarms and equipment outages to field personnel and management to restore equipment into service; answering incoming telephone calls to the NOC; performing remote testing of telecommunications facilities to isolate problems.
- Provide network status reports to various departments; receiving telephone requests from various departments and vendors; and providing technical assistance.
- Detect and analyze alarms to restore equipment to service and escalate alarms and equipment outages to management.
- Utilize telephone and trouble ticket database (Remedy) to notify Technicians of alarms and equipment outages.
- Provide remote network facilities testing.
- Maintain NOC procedures and equipment records.
Education
Bachelor of Arts - Management And Information Systems
New Jersery Institute of Technology
Newark, NJ05.2008
Skills
- Project Management
- Process Improvement
- Operations Management
- Technical implementation
- Organizational Development
- Budget Management
- MS Office
- Strategic Planning
- Cloud Infrastructure
- Cloud Application Management
- Vendor Management
- Customer Relationship Management
Timeline
Associate Director - Orchestration Engineering
Verizon
08.2022 - Current
Associate Director - VCP Edge Engineering
Verizon
07.2019 - 07.2022
Principal Engineering - Network Implementation
Verizon
11.2016 - 07.2019
Sr. Technician - Wireless NMC Project Management
Verizon
10.2014 - 11.2016
Supervisor - Wireless NMC
Verizon
02.2012 - 10.2014
Lead Technician - Wireless NMC
Verizon
02.2008 - 03.2010
Bachelor of Arts - Management And Information Systems
New Jersery Institute of Technology
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