Sr. Unified Communications Engineer

Job Description

Who We Are

Creative Artists Agency (CAA) is the leading entertainment and sports agency, with global expertise in filmed and live entertainment, digital media, publishing, sponsorship sales and endorsements, media finance, consumer investing, fashion, trademark licensing, and philanthropy.  Distinguished by its culture of collaboration and exceptional client service, CAA’s diverse workforce identifies, innovates, and amplifies opportunities for the people and organizations that shape culture and inspire the world.  The trailblazer of the agency business, CAA was the first to build a sports business, create an investment bank, launch a venture fund, found technology start-up companies, establish a philanthropic arm, build a business in China, and form a brand marketing services division, among other innovations. Named Most Valuable Sports Agency by Forbes for eight consecutive years, CAA represents more than 2,000 of the world’s top athletes in football, baseball, basketball, hockey, soccer, in addition to coaches, on-air broadcasters, and sports personalities and works in the areas of broadcast rights, corporate marketing initiatives, social impact, and sports properties for sales and sponsorship opportunities. Founded in 1975, CAA is headquartered in Los Angeles, and has offices in New York, Nashville, Memphis, Chicago, Miami, London, Munich, Geneva, Stockholm, Shanghai, and Beijing, among other locations globally.

The Role

The Senior Unified Communications Engineer is a senior hands-on technical engineer responsible for the implementation, operation, reliability, and lifecycle management of CAA’s global Unified Communications services across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments. This role serves as the primary technical escalation point for complex UC issues and is responsible for translating architecture standards and strategic direction into stable, supportable production solutions. The Senior UC Engineer maintains deep technical expertise across CAA’s communications platforms, including Cisco Unified Communications technologies and cloud-based services such as Jabber, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom. Working closely with the Senior Unified Communications Architect, Network, Infrastructure, Audio Visual, Security, Service Desk, and managed service partners, this position leads technical implementation, troubleshooting, upgrades, migrations, monitoring, documentation, and operational improvement. The role is expected to remain highly hands-on while mentoring junior engineers and helping operationalize UC services at global scale.

Responsibilities

- Implement, operate, maintain, and support enterprise-scale Unified Communications platforms across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments.

- Provide deep hands-on technical support for Cisco UC technologies including CUCM, Unity Connection, CUBE, CER/E911, Expressway, UCCX, Webex, Jabber, SBCs, and associated voice infrastructure.

- Support Microsoft Teams Phone, Zoom, Webex, and other cloud communications platforms as part of CAA’s hybrid communications environment.

- Serve as the senior technical escalation point for complex issues involving SIP signaling, call routing, dial plans, media flows, voice quality, SBCs, endpoints, certificates, licensing, carrier connectivity, and service availability.

- Execute platform upgrades, migrations, lifecycle refreshes, certificate renewals, firmware deployments, configuration changes, and other critical production activities using established change-management processes.

- Implement architecture standards, reference designs, and modernization initiatives defined in partnership with the Senior Unified Communications Architect.

- Develop and maintain proactive monitoring, alerting, telemetry, and service-health practices across the UC environment, including call quality, platform availability, capacity, certificate health, trunk status, and infrastructure dependencies.

- Perform root-cause analysis for significant incidents and recurring service issues, identify corrective actions, and drive technical remediation through completion.

- Partner closely with Network and Infrastructure teams to troubleshoot LAN, WAN, Wi-Fi, VPN, firewall, QoS, routing, DNS, identity, and other dependencies affecting real-time communications.

- Lead the technical execution of UC requirements for office openings, relocations, acquisitions, renovations, platform migrations, and lifecycle refresh initiatives.

- Create and maintain detailed technical documentation, configuration standards, diagrams, operational runbooks, troubleshooting guides, and knowledge articles.

- Provide technical oversight of managed service providers and vendors, validate technical recommendations, review implementation plans, and ensure work meets CAA engineering standards.

- Mentor junior UC engineers and enable Service Desk teams to resolve appropriate Tier 1 and Tier 2 requests through documentation, training, and knowledge transfer.

- Develop Features and user stories within CAA’s Agile delivery model and execute technical work associated with prioritized UC initiatives.

- Participate in an on-call rotation and respond to critical service incidents outside normal business hours when required

Qualifications

- 8+ years of hands-on Unified Communications engineering experience within a large enterprise, global organization, service provider, or comparable complex environment.

- Professional-level Cisco Collaboration certification such as CCNP Collaboration or Cisco Certified Specialist – Collaboration Core, or equivalent demonstrated expertise

- Microsoft 365 Certified: Collaboration Communications Systems Engineer Associate, or equivalent demonstrated experience with Microsoft Teams Phone

- Deep hands-on experience administering and troubleshooting enterprise Cisco Unified Communications technologies, particularly CUCM, Unity Connection, CUBE, Expressway, CER/E911, SIP, and associated voice services.

- Demonstrated experience performing production upgrades, migrations, configuration changes, lifecycle management, troubleshooting, and incident response for mission-critical voice platforms.

- Strong understanding of SIP signaling, PSTN connectivity, SBCs, call routing, dial plans, codecs, RTP/media flows, QoS, latency, jitter, packet loss, and MOS.

- Experience supporting hybrid communications environments incorporating cloud platforms such as Microsoft Teams Phone, Webex Calling, Zoom Phone, or comparable UCaaS services.

- Strong networking fundamentals with the ability to troubleshoot real-time communications across LAN, WAN, Wi-Fi, VPN, firewall, DNS, and cloud networking environments.

- Experience with proactive monitoring, service-health analytics, call-quality reporting, capacity management, and root-cause analysis.

- Experience integrating UC platforms with enterprise identity, security, certificates, authentication, and network infrastructure.

- Ability to independently execute complex technical changes while following established change, incident, and problem-management processes.

- Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with architects, engineers, managed service providers, vendors, and cross-functional technology teams.

- Strong documentation skills with experience creating technical diagrams, runbooks, configuration standards, and operational knowledge articles.

- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to explain technical issues clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

- Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Qualifications

- CCIE Collaboration, additional Cisco Collaboration Specialist certifications, Microsoft Teams Administrator Associate, or relevant cloud, networking, automation, or security certifications.

- Microsoft Teams Phone experience including Direct Routing, Operator Connect, Teams administration, PowerShell, or related Microsoft communications technologies.

- Experience with Webex Calling, Zoom Phone, or comparable enterprise UCaaS platforms.

- Experience with automation using PowerShell, Python, REST APIs, Microsoft Graph, Cisco APIs, or workflow automation tools.

- Experience with UC monitoring, analytics, synthetic testing, or observability platforms.

- Experience supporting global SIP carriers, SBCs, emergency calling, number management, and international telephony services.

- Experience implementing large-scale UC migrations, platform upgrades, coexistence strategies, or cloud transitions.

- Experience supporting conferencing endpoints or collaborating closely with Audio Visual and Workplace Technology teams.

- Experience managing or technically directing managed service providers and technology vendors.

- Experience working within Agile delivery frameworks and managing technical work through Jira or similar platforms.

Location

This role is hybrid, based in our Nashville office.

Compensation  
The annual base salary range for this position is as follows:

Nashville, TN - $160,000 - $181,000

This position is also eligible for benefits and a discretionary bonus. Ultimately, wages may vary based upon factors including, but not limited to, relevant experience, time in role, business sector, and geographic location, among other criteria. Please talk with a CAA Recruiter to learn more.

Benefits

At CAA, we offer a competitive compensation and benefits* package for all regular full-time employees:

Benefits where the company pays 80%-100% of the cost include:

- Medical
- Basic Life and AD&D Insurance
- Telemedicine
- Employee assistance and mental health counseling in person, virtually or through text
- Paid Vacation / Holidays
- Paid Sick Time
- Paid Parental Leave and Other Paid Leaves of Absence
- NICU leave
- Bereavement resources
- Adoption Benefits
- Educational Assistance
- Mental Health Resources
- Employee Assistance Plan

Employees may also elect to participate in voluntary benefits:

- Dental, Vision Insurance
- 401K Plan
- Flexible Spending Accounts (Health Care and Dependent Care)
- Health Savings Account
- Voluntary Life and AD&D Insurance

Employee Perks:

- Commuter Benefits

Benefits offered also include other statutory mandated benefits

For more information and to submit an application, please apply here:

Creative Artists Agency, LLC (the “Company”) is committed to a policy of Equal Employment Opportunity and will not discriminate on the basis of race (inclusive of traits historically associated with race, including hair texture and protective hairstyles), color, religion, creed, gender or sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding or related medical conditions), national origin, ancestry, age, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, family and medical care leave status, military or veteran status, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, political affiliation, an employee’s or their dependent’s reproductive health decision making (e.g., the decision to use or access a particular drug, device or medical service), or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

The absence of a permanent address is not a bar to employment. The Company does not discriminate against individuals based on housing status, including the absence of a fixed address.

The Company also complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act and applicable state and local laws with regard to providing reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities.

CAA does not accept unsolicited resumes from third-party recruiters unless they were contractually engaged by CAA to provide candidates for a specified opening. Any such employment agency, person or entity that submits an unsolicited resume does so with the acknowledgement and agreement that CAA will have the right to hire that applicant at its discretion without any fee owed to the submitting employment agency, person or entity.