Senior Cybersecurity Engineer (Washington)

Job Title: Senior Cybersecurity Engineer - Firewall & Network Security

Location: Washington, DC/ remote (Up to 10% travel may be required.)

Duration: 12+ Months

Summary:

The Senior Cybersecurity Engineer provides advanced cybersecurity engineering expertise to protect enterprise systems, networks, applications, and data. This role is responsible for designing, implementing, maintaining, and optimizing security technologies while supporting the organization's cybersecurity strategy and operational objectives.

The position serves as a technical leader for network and perimeter security, ensuring security controls are effectively implemented to protect critical infrastructure. The Senior Cybersecurity Engineer proactively assesses threats, vulnerabilities, and risks, develops mitigation strategies, and collaborates across teams to strengthen the organization's security posture.

Key Responsibilities

Lead the design, implementation, administration, and optimization of enterprise firewall technologies, including Palo Alto Networks firewalls and related security platforms.

Manage firewall policies, rule reviews, configuration changes, and security architecture recommendations while ensuring compliance with established security standards.

Analyze and respond to network security threats, vulnerabilities, and security incidents.

Perform security risk assessments and provide recommendations to improve network, cloud, and application security.

Support and maintain Intrusion Detection and Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS), Web Application Firewalls (WAF), VPN technologies, and network access controls.

Collaborate with infrastructure, networking, cloud, and application teams to integrate security requirements into solution designs and implementations.

Support cloud security initiatives across AWS and Microsoft Azure environments.

Develop and maintain security engineering documentation, network security diagrams, standards, procedures, and operational runbooks.

Lead security technology projects and provide technical guidance to project teams throughout the system development lifecycle.

Conduct security reviews of new systems, technologies, and architectural designs.

Participate in incident response, threat hunting, root cause analysis, and forensic investigations as required.

Monitor security events through SIEM platforms and partner with Security Operations teams to identify and remediate threats.

Automate operational security functions using scripting languages such as Python, PowerShell, or Bash.

Ensure security controls and configurations comply with NIST, CIS, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, and other applicable regulatory and industry standards.

Provide mentorship and technical guidance to junior security staff and project teams.

Support planned and unplanned maintenance activities, including after-hours implementations and incident response activities.

Required Qualifications

Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field.

Minimum 11 years of cybersecurity engineering experience, with a focus on network and firewall security.

Extensive hands-on experience administering Palo Alto Networks firewalls in large enterprise environments.

Strong understanding of TCP/IP networking, routing, switching, VPNs, WAN/LAN technologies, and network security architecture.

Experience managing IDS/IPS, SIEM, EDR, DLP, CASB, and other enterprise security technologies.

Experience supporting security operations within AWS and Microsoft Azure environments.

Advanced knowledge of vulnerability management, risk assessment methodologies, and security frameworks.

Experience with scripting and automation using Python, PowerShell, Bash, or similar languages.

Strong understanding of NIST, CIS Controls, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and industry cybersecurity best practices.

Excellent communication, stakeholder management, and problem-solving skills.

Preferred Qualifications

Master's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Technology, or related discipline.

Professional certifications such as CISSP, CEH, Security+, GIAC, PCNSE, CCNP Security, or equivalent.

Experience supporting Security Operations Center (SOC) functions.

Experience with cloud-native security tools and zero-trust security architectures.

Experience developing security automation and orchestration solutions.