Senior Akamai Engineer (Contractor)
100% remote
6 months
Contract Role | Web Platform Engineering | Akamai CDN, Edge Delivery, Caching, Routing, Security, and Traffic Management
Position Summary: The Senior Akamai Engineer Contractor will serve as a specialized technical resource for Akamai configuration, optimization, troubleshooting, and operational support across Universal Destinations & Experiences digital platforms. This role will focus on CDN delivery, caching strategy, routing, redirects, edge security, traffic management, performance optimization, and production support for high-traffic consumer-facing web experiences. The ideal candidate has deep hands-on Akamai experience, strong web platform fundamentals, and the ability to partner across engineering, operations, product, release management, and vendor teams to deliver reliable and scalable digital experiences.
Job Snapshot Role Type Contractor
Functional Area Web Engineering / Akamai Platform Engineering
Primary Tools Akamai Property Manager, Edge Redirector, Edge DNS, EdgeWorkers, CDN Caching, Routing, Security, and Traffic Management
Primary Partners Engineering, Product, Content, QA, Release Management, Operations, and Vendors
Property Configuration & Delivery
• Configure Akamai Property Manager for Ion, Dynamic Site Accelerator, and Dynamic Media delivery use cases.
• Design rule trees, match criteria, behavior chaining, and delivery logic to support scalable and maintainable edge configurations.
• Manage multi-environment property promotion across development, staging, and production.
• Configure origin servers, path routing, origin failover, and delivery behaviors to support reliable web traffic flow.
• Support TLS/SSL certificate management and secure HTTPS delivery across Akamai-enabled properties.
• Caching & Performance Optimization
• Develop advanced caching strategies, including cache key design, tiered distribution, TTL tuning, and origin offload optimization.
• Define cache invalidation and Fast Purge strategies to support accurate, timely, and controlled content updates.
• Use Image & Video Manager to optimize media delivery, improve page performance, and reduce payload size.
• Leverage prefetching, SureRoute, and protocol optimization for HTTP/2 and HTTP/3 delivery improvements.
• Use mPulse and Real User Monitoring data to analyze performance, identify issues, and support troubleshooting.
• Traffic Routing & Cloudlets
• Manage URL redirects using Edge Redirector and related Cloudlet policies.
• Support canary and percentage-based traffic rollouts using Phased Release Cloudlet capabilities.
• Support Visitor Prioritization and Queue-it integration for high-demand launches, ticketing events, promotions, and seasonal traffic surges.
• Use Audience Segmentation to support A/B testing, targeted delivery, and controlled guest experiences.
• Support Global Traffic Management for load balancing, geo-routing, failover, and resilient traffic distribution. Prepared for Recruiting Partner Use
Edge Compute
• Develop and maintain EdgeWorkers for custom logic at the edge.
• Use EdgeKV for edge-side key-value data storage and low-latency decisioning.
• Perform request and response manipulation, including header injection, cookie handling, rewrites, and edge-side logic execution.
Automation & Tooling
- Use Akamai CLI and Property Manager API for configuration management, automation, validation, and repeatable operational workflows.
- Leverage the Terraform Akamai provider to support Infrastructure as Code practices for property and platform configuration.
- Use DataStream and Log Delivery Service to support delivery analytics, troubleshooting, reporting, and observability.
- Integrate Akamai configuration changes with CI/CD pipelines for automated property deployments and environment promotion.
- Use Akamai Control Center reporting and traffic analysis to monitor delivery health, validate changes, and identify optimization opportunities.
Other Duties as Assigned
- Support Prerender configuration, troubleshooting, and operational coordination to help ensure search-engine-friendly rendering for supported web experiences.
- Support Queue-it integrations and operational readiness for high-demand events, including traffic waiting room configuration, validation, monitoring, and incident response coordination.
- Support Coveo-related delivery needs where web platform integration, Search configuration, troubleshooting, or operational coordination is required.
- Assist with related platform tools, documentation, release validation, vendor coordination, and production support activities as assigned.
Required Qualifications
- 7+ years of web platform, CDN, infrastructure, site reliability, or edge delivery engineering experience.
- Deep understanding of HTTP, DNS, TLS, caching, routing, redirects, headers, CDN behavior, origin architecture, and browser/network fundamentals.
- Hands-on senior-level experience with Akamai configuration, delivery optimization, troubleshooting, and production support.
- Experience with Akamai tools such as Property Manager, Edge Redirector, Edge DNS, certificates, cache purge, reporting, and diagnostic utilities.
- Working knowledge of web application architectures, APIs, JavaScript-based applications, and enterprise content or commerce platforms.
- Proven experience troubleshooting complex production issues across CDN, origin, application, DNS, certificate, and network layers.
- Understanding of web performance, security controls, bot mitigation, WAF concepts, SEO delivery considerations, and observability practices.
- Familiarity with CI/CD, release processes, and environment validation.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills with the ability to work across technical and non-technical partners.
Preferred Qualifications
- Akamai certification or advanced hands-on experience with enterprise-scale Akamai implementations.
- Experience with EdgeWorkers, Cloudlets, Edge Redirector, Image & Video Manager, API Acceleration, or similar Akamai capabilities.
- Experience with Akamai security products such as WAF, Bot Manager, rate controls, adaptive security, or threat protection services.
