Senior Network Engineer, Palo Alto

***The salary range for this position is $74.83 - $81.35 per hour.***

***Please note, that all applicants applying for US job openings must be legally authorized to work in the United States.***

Our Customer is an independent investment management firm dedicated to delivering an investment experience that helps people get more out of life. They manage $1,198.7 billion in assets on behalf of clients worldwide with the help of over 8,000 highly engaged and motivated employees focused on client needs. They actively encourage their people to collaborate to find the best ideas and solutions for clients, leveraging the tremendous diversity of thought that exists across their global organization.

We are seeking a Senior Network Engineer, Palo Alto on a contract basis to help support their business needs. This role is the global corporate network team firewall and security subject matter expert (SME) in the analysis, assessment, development, and evaluation of network security solutions and architectures to secure networks, applications, operating systems, and databases. This position is an SME position on the network architect and engineering team and is the security liaison for the team. This role is hands-on design and implementation of various network security stack architectures with a primary focus on Palo Alto firewalls. Additionally, the role assists in the development of network security requirements, assists in technical regulatory compliance efforts, evaluates security services and technologies, and reviews and documents information security policies and procedures as well as provides monitoring and oversight for alerts in this environment to hand off to Operations.

The candidate in this role has a broad, generalist knowledge of on-prem infrastructure security and knowledge of public cloud infrastructure and automation. They will ideally have a specialist area in network security (Palo Alto firewalls, demilitarized zone (DMZ), Segmentation, Analog-to-digital conversion (ADC), web application firewall (WAF), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDOS), redundancy architectures, endpoint security, etc. ) but can turn their attention to and learn something new rapidly. This role will include capabilities on presenting network security solution design options for securing Internet and Partner architectures, container security, multi-cloud, and endpoint security awareness. This role is a hybrid setup in Houston, TX.

What You’ll Do:

• Deploy Palo Alto firewalls in AWS and Azure (VM, NGFW and CN)
• Understand network and cloud firewall deployments and architectures
• Architect and Engineer DMZ security for Internet-facing web applications
• Network segmentation of non-prod and production environments
• Understand various vendor solutions that are used to secure various architectures
• Proactively identify and determine priority for any network security gaps
• Mentor other Network Engineers for security best practices
• Point of Contact for all escalations from engineering and ops teams
• Firewall standards and tools used to audit standards are applied
• Firewall rule cleanup tools and procedures
• Work with security teams to create and/or steer processes for identifying and remediating vulnerabilities and risk
• Serve as point of escalation point for network security solutions
• Keep abreast of new cloud and automation developments, evaluate alternative approaches, and recommend new software or modifications that enhance operations and development activities
• Identify opportunities and make recommendations to improve availability, reliability, efficiency, performance, and overall service within the distributed computing environment and associated departments
• Provide clear documentation of technical solutions and communicate plans to management and customers
• Perform related duties as required or assigned

Must Haves:

• 7-10 years of experience managing various network architectures
• 5+ years of experience on Palo Alto firewalls and securing Internet-facing applications
• 3+ years of experience in Public Cloud technologies including AWS and Microsoft Azure specifically in networking and security solutions and implementation
• 5+ years of technical experience with network security technologies (ex. Firewalls, proxy, and network segmentation)
• 5+ years of experience working with routing protocols Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) and Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)
• Experience in DevOps scripting and automation using tools such as Ansible, Puppet, Chef, and/or Terraform preferred
• Ability to understand Openshift, Docker, and Kubernetes container environment preferred
• Experience with DLP, WAF, DDOS, IPS/IDS preferred
• Experience with Palo Cloud, SOAR, Twistlock, Redlock, and Prisma Access preferred
• Experience with various endpoint security solutions preferred

Education:

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science
• Information Technology/Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) preferred
• Information Technology/Cisco Certified Network Professional Security (CCNP) preferred

Hours & Location:

• M-F, 40 hours/week. This role will be a hybrid setup in Houston, TX.

Please Note: In order to create a safe, productive work environment, our client is requiring all contractors who plan to be onsite to be fully vaccinated according to the CDC guidelines. Prior to coming into our offices, contractors will be required to attest that they are fully vaccinated.

Perks are available through our 3rd Party Employer of Record (Available upon completion of the waiting period for eligible engagements)

Health Benefits: Medical, Dental, Vision, Life (including spouse & child), 401k, STD/LTD, AD&D, and Commuter Benefits program.