Cybersecurity Sr Engineer

GDIT is seeking an experienced Senior Cybersecurity Engineer to design, implement, operate, and continuously improve security infrastructure across on-premises data centers and cloud environments supporting business and critical scientific workloads.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on engineer with strong expertise in cybersecurity, Palo Alto Networks firewalls, hybrid-cloud security architecture, and security automation. This role operates across both architecture and implementation - from defining security patterns and policies for configuring infrastructure, troubleshooting complex issues, and automating security operations.

This role is mostly remote, but must be within commuting distance to Rockville, MD for occasional onsite requirements.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Network Security

·         Design, deploy, manage, and optimize Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls, including security policies, NAT, routing, VPN, application controls, threat prevention, and URL filtering.

·         Design secure connectivity, segmentation, and security boundaries between cloud and on-premises environments.

·         Manage firewall high availability, upgrades, lifecycle, capacity, and policy optimization.

Security Architecture & Automation

·         Modernize environment to leverage Infrastructure as Code using technologies such as Terraform and/or ansible.

·         Support security controls and evidence mapping aligned with frameworks such as NIST 800-53/800-171, FedRAMP, and FISMA.

·         Evaluate existing security architectures and identify improvements in security, resiliency, scalability, performance, and operational efficiency.

·         Develop secure, resilient architecture spanning cloud and on-premises infrastructure using defense-in-depth and Zero Trust principles.

Operations & Incident Response

·         Troubleshoot complex network, firewall, cloud and application-connectivity issues.

·         Support security incidents, production outages, and root-cause analysis.

·         Develop monitoring, logging, alerting, dashboards, runbooks, and engineering standards.

·         Perform performance tuning, capacity planning, and security infrastructure lifecycle management.

·         Participate in on-call or escalation support as required.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Required:

·         Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of hands-on cybersecurity engineering experience (or, 8+ years of experience in cloud security engineering in lieu of degree)

·         Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, managing, and troubleshooting Palo Alto Networks Firewalls and hybrid network security architectures.

·         Experience with Palo Alto Panorama, Prisma Cloud, and/or related Palo Alto technologies

·         Experience securing hybrid on-premises/AWS environments.

·         Experience with Terraform, Ansible, Python, Bash, APIs, or other infrastructure/security automation technologies.

·         Strong understanding of networking and security fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, network segmentation, VPNs, TLS/PKI, encryption, IAM, Zero Trust, and threat detection/prevention.

·         Experience troubleshooting complex security and network issues.

·         Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust.

Preferred

·         Design and implement security controls for AWS multi-account and hybrid-cloud environments.

·         Deploy and manage AWS security capabilities, including Network Firewall, WAF, Shield, Security Groups/NACLs, GuardDuty, Security Hub, CloudTrail, Config, IAM/Identity Center, KMS, VPC, and Transit Gateway controls

·         Experience using LLMs, AI agents, or generative AI tools to automate engineering, security, or compliance workflows

·         Experience implementing security and compliance controls aligned with NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, or similar frameworks.

·         Palo Alto Networks (e.g., PCNSE) certifications, or equivalent practical experience.