Senior Network Security Architect

Required Skills & Experience

Active CCIE Security certification (mandatory, no substitutions).\n10+ years of network and network security experience.\n5+ years leading network security architecture, assessment, or consulting engagements.\nDeep expertise with Cisco networking and security technologies, including:\nCisco Secure Firewall / Firepower\nCisco ASA\nCisco ISE\nCisco TrustSec\nIOS / IOS XE\nVPN technologies\nEnterprise routing and switching\nStrong experience assessing and designing large-scale enterprise network security environments.\nHands-on experience with network segmentation using:\nVLANs\nVRFs\nACLs\nFirewalls\nSecurity zones\nIdentity-based access controls\nMicrosegmentation strategies\nExperience designing secure hybrid cloud and data center architectures.\nAbility to analyze network configurations, firewall rules, routing tables, traffic flows, and architecture diagrams.\nExperience creating architecture diagrams, assessment reports, technical documentation, and implementation roadmaps.\nStrong stakeholder management, workshop facilitation, and executive presentation skills.\nAbility to work independently as the sole technical lead.

Nice to Have Skills & Experience

Experience supporting public utilities, critical infrastructure, power, water/wastewater, or regulated environments.\nExperience working in environments with both IT and operational technology (OT) dependencies.\nKnowledge of:\nNIST Cybersecurity Framework\nNIST SP 800-207 (Zero Trust Architecture)\nCIS Controls\nExperience with:\nPalo Alto Networks\nFortinet\nCloud-native firewalls\nSD-WAN\nSASE / ZTNA\nDDoS protection platforms\nDNS security solutions\nNetwork Access Control (NAC)\nWorkload microsegmentation technologies\nExperience developing migration strategies, implementation estimates, and network modernization roadmaps.

Job Description

The Senior Network Security Architect will serve as the sole technical lead for a network security assessment and reference architecture engagement for a major U.S. public utility. This individual will assess the current network environment, identify security and segmentation gaps, and develop a target-state architecture and implementation roadmap that can be executed by the client's internal network team.\n\nDay-to-Day Responsibilities\nLead discovery sessions, workshops, interviews, and technical reviews with cybersecurity, network, infrastructure, cloud, and operations teams.\nAssess enterprise WAN/LAN, data centers, cloud connectivity, internet edge, partner connections, remote access, VPNs, routing, switching, and firewall environments.\nAnalyze existing network segmentation, trust boundaries, security zones, ACLs, VRFs, firewalls, and identity-based controls.\nIdentify lateral movement risks, excessive network access, segmentation gaps, and architectural weaknesses.\nDevelop a target-state network security and segmentation architecture aligned to Zero Trust principles.\nCreate trust-zone models, secure access patterns, management-plane security standards, and east-west/north-south traffic control strategies.\nProduce architecture diagrams, design documentation, findings reports, and executive presentations.\nBuild a phased implementation roadmap including quick wins, dependencies, transition states, and prioritized initiatives.\nFacilitate stakeholder alignment and present recommendations to both executive and technical audiences.\nProvide knowledge transfer to internal network and security teams.