Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Wireless Director

🎯 Role Definition

The Wireless Director is a senior technical and operational leader who sets the strategic direction for wireless services and networks, leads engineering and operations teams, oversees vendor relationships and capital programs, and ensures network performance, reliability and regulatory compliance. This role requires deep RF and RAN expertise, proven people leadership, strong commercial acumen, and hands‑on experience with modern 4G/5G architectures, small cells / DAS, private wireless, and cloud‑native network functions.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Senior RAN / RF Engineering Manager
Network Operations Manager (Wireless)
Senior Systems Architect — Mobile/Core

Advancement To:

VP of Network Engineering
Chief Technology Officer (CTO) — Telecom / Wireless
Head of Connectivity & IoT

Lateral Moves:

Director, Network Planning & Optimization
Director, Wireless Product & Services
Director, Field Operations (Infrastructure & Sites)

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Define and own the wireless network strategy (4G/5G/LTE, private LTE/Citizens Broadband Radio Service), translating business objectives into multi‑year roadmaps for capacity, coverage, latency and reliability improvements across metro and nationwide footprints.
Lead technical design and architecture for RAN and core network modernization initiatives, including cloud‑native 5G core (UPF, AMF, SMF), virtualized RAN (vRAN), multi‑access edge computing (MEC) and network slicing where applicable.
Manage end‑to‑end rollout programs for large capital projects — site acquisition, civil works, tower installs, fiber backhaul, small cell and DAS deployments — ensuring schedule, scope and budget targets are met.
Oversee RF planning and optimization activities, including propagation modeling, link budget analysis, capacity planning, carrier aggregation strategy, and continuous tuning to meet SLAs and KPIs (availability, throughput, drop rate).
Own vendor selection, negotiation and contracts for RAN, core, OSS/BSS, backhaul and test equipment; evaluate vendor roadmaps (Nokia, Ericsson, Samsung, Huawei alternatives) and hold vendors accountable for delivery and acceptance testing.
Drive network operations excellence by defining NOC procedures, incident response playbooks, escalation matrices, root cause analysis processes and change management to minimize MTTR and maintain service continuity.
Establish and report on key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboards — traffic per sector, RAN congestion, handover success, latency, packet loss, and customer experience metrics — using telemetry and analytics tools.
Lead budget planning (CAPEX/OPEX) for wireless programs, forecast total cost of ownership for network investments, and optimize spend through lifecycle planning, reuse strategies and vendor consolidation.
Ensure regulatory and spectrum compliance (FCC/ national/regional authorities), manage licensing requirements, coordinate RF exposure and environmental permitting activities, and support audit processes.
Develop and implement security requirements for wireless infrastructure, including SIM/USIM lifecycle, signaling protection, core network segmentation, and alignment with enterprise cybersecurity policies.
Build, mentor and scale cross‑functional engineering teams (RF engineers, RAN architects, transport/backhaul, field deployment, NOC) with clear career paths, performance goals and hiring plans.
Establish cross‑functional collaboration with product, sales, enterprise account teams and customer success to ensure alignment on SLAs, service onboarding, private network deployments and enterprise solutions (IoT, M2M, critical comms).
Lead vendor interoperability testing, integration validation, lab verification and field acceptance testing (FAT/SAT) for new radio releases, software upgrades and feature activations (VoLTE, VoNR, eMBB, URLLC).
Drive continuous improvement through automation of deployment, monitoring and remediation workflows (CI/CD for network functions, automated test suites, zero‑touch provisioning).
Direct the end‑to‑end lifecycle for enterprise/private wireless offerings: requirements capture, solution architecture, pricing, and operational playbooks for deployment and support.
Oversee transport and backhaul strategy (fiber, microwave, millimeter wave), designing resilient ring/topology architectures and traffic engineering to meet latency and capacity requirements for 5G services.
Champion sustainability and site cost optimization initiatives: energy efficient radio configurations, site colocation strategies, and retrofit programs to reduce OPEX and environmental impact.
Manage escalations with major customers and partners; lead outage postmortems, customer communications and remediation plans to restore confidence and contractual compliance.
Coordinate with procurement and legal to manage SLAs, penalties, warranty claims, spare parts strategy and service level agreements for third‑party vendors and contractors.
Lead technology evaluation and proof‑of‑concept projects for emerging wireless technologies (CBRS, mmWave, Open RAN, private 5G, network automation frameworks) and determine production readiness.
Maintain visibility into competitive landscape and vendor innovations; recommend strategic partnerships and roadmap adjustments to capture new revenue opportunities and mitigate technical risk.
Ensure documentation, runbooks and knowledgebase are maintained for all wireless systems and field procedures, supporting effective training and succession planning.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc data requests and exploratory data analysis.
Contribute to the organization's data strategy and roadmap.
Collaborate with business units to translate data needs into engineering requirements.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies within the data engineering team.
Provide subject matter expertise for RFP responses, executive briefs and investor / partner presentations related to wireless capabilities and roadmap.
Assist HR with technical interviewing, hiring calibration, and development of role profiles for wireless engineering positions.
Mentor mid‑level managers on stakeholder influence, budgeting, vendor governance and performance management.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

RF Engineering & Planning — deep experience with propagation models, coverage/capacity planning, drive testing and RF optimization tools (Atoll, Mentum, TEMS).
RAN Architecture — hands‑on knowledge of LTE and 5G NR architecture, sectorization strategies, massive MIMO, carrier aggregation and vRAN concepts.
Core Network & IMS — understanding of EPC, 5G core (UPF/SMF/AMF), IMS, VoLTE/VoNR and interworking requirements.
Transport & Backhaul — design experience with fiber ring architectures, microwave/millimeter wave links, SDH/OTN and traffic engineering for low‑latency services.
OSS/BSS & Monitoring — familiarity with network management systems, fault/performance management, telemetry collection (SNMP/gNMI/NETCONF), and AIOps platforms.
Cloud & Virtualization — experience deploying VNFs/CNFs on private/public cloud, Kubernetes, virtualization, and CI/CD pipelines for network functions.
Spectrum & Regulatory — practical knowledge of spectrum licensing, FCC/ITU rules, CBRS/Private LTE frameworks and RF exposure compliance.
Network Security — IPsec, signaling plane protections, firewalling, segmentation, and alignment with enterprise security frameworks.
Vendor & Contract Management — RFP/RFI processes, SOWs, SLAs, KPI enforcement and lifecycle vendor governance.
Data & Analytics — ability to use telemetry/Big Data for anomaly detection, capacity forecasting, and customer experience analytics (SQL, Python, visualization tools).
Field Operations & Project Management — oversight of site construction, safety, permitting, and large multi‑site rollouts with PMO governance tools.

Soft Skills

Strategic leadership — craft and communicate long‑term technical roadmaps that align with business goals and drive measurable outcomes.
Cross‑functional collaboration — influence product, sales, legal and finance teams to deliver cohesive services and enterprise solutions.
Customer orientation — manage escalations, set realistic expectations and maintain service quality for enterprise and carrier customers.
People leadership — hire, mentor, develop and retain high‑performing engineering teams while driving accountability.
Negotiation & vendor diplomacy — execute beneficial commercial agreements while maintaining strong vendor relationships and delivery oversight.
Problem solving & decision making — prioritize high‑impact actions during outages and complex technical transformations.
Communication — translate complex technical issues into executive‑level briefings and persuasive business cases.
Change management — lead organizational adoption of new tools, practices and operating models with minimal disruption.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering, Computer Science, or related technical field.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree (MSc, MEng, MBA preferred for senior business leadership aspects) in Telecommunications, Networking, Business Administration or related discipline.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Electrical / Telecommunications Engineering
Computer Science / Networking
Information Systems / Cybersecurity
Business Administration (for cross‑functional leadership)

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

10–18+ years in wireless engineering, network operations or related roles with progressive technical and people leadership responsibility.

Preferred:

12+ years with demonstrated experience leading RAN/core modernization, multi‑vendor rollouts, CAPEX/OPEX ownership, and P&L or portfolio management for wireless products. Experience with 5G deployments, private LTE/CBRS, Open RAN or cloud‑native network functions is highly desirable.