Network Security Engineer with Palo Alto (NJ/NY Local Candidates Only)

Job Description:

We are seeking a highly skilled Palo Alto Security Engineer to design, implement, operate, and support enterprise network and security infrastructure. The ideal candidate will have deep hands-on experience with Palo Alto firewalls, strong Cisco routing and switching fundamentals, and the ability to troubleshoot complex network and security issues at the packet level. This role requires strong technical expertise, excellent documentation skills, and the ability to collaborate across infrastructure, application, and business teams in a regulated enterprise environment.

Key Responsibilities

• Design, configure, and support Palo Alto firewalls, including security policies, NAT, and VPNs (Site-to-Site, Remote Access, SSL).
• Provide operational and engineering support for network, security, and monitoring systems across the enterprise.
• Troubleshoot complex network and security issues independently, including low-level packet and protocol analysis.
• Assist infrastructure and application teams with network and security-related issues.
• Manage and resolve incidents and ad-hoc operational requests, including after-hours and weekend on-call support as required.
• Open and manage support cases with hardware/software vendors, telecom providers, and carriers through full resolution.
• Work directly with end users and business stakeholders as needed to resolve connectivity or security issues.
• Maintain and enhance network and security monitoring systems, including alerting, escalation policies, and reporting (e.g., Nagios, Grafana).
• Produce periodic system health, capacity, and utilization reports.
• Collaborate with internal and external auditors to provide audit evidence and documentation for SOX, PCI, and Cybersecurity requirements.
• Analyze business and technical requirements and provide secure design and implementation recommendations aligned with company standards and best practices.
• Create and maintain detailed technical documentation, including firewall rules, network diagrams, design documents, and operational procedures.
• Participate in new implementations, upgrades, and infrastructure projects across local and global environments.
• Enforce policies and procedures related to system configuration, redundancy, monitoring, and change management.
• Actively remediate network and security vulnerabilities to meet business, compliance, and security requirements.

Required Qualifications

• 5+ years of hands-on firewall configuration experience, including:
• Security policy design
• NAT
• VPNs (L2L, Remote Access, SSL)
• Strong experience with Palo Alto firewalls; Cisco ASA experience is a plus.
• 10+ years of Cisco routing and switching experience.
• Excellent understanding of Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking concepts.
• 12+ years of overall IT network and security engineering and support experience.
• Strong Linux skills with comfort using command-line tools on RHEL.
• Solid understanding of SSH and SSH port forwarding.
• In-depth knowledge of security technologies including firewalls, load balancers, proxies, and authentication mechanisms.
• Experience with SNMP-based monitoring systems (e.g., Nagios, Grafana).
• Proven ability to troubleshoot network and security systems with minimal guidance.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to provide examples of:
• Written technical documentation
• Network diagrams created or maintained
• Deep understanding of industry-leading network and security technologies from design, engineering, and troubleshooting perspectives.

Preferred / Nice-to-Have Skills

• Experience with Arista network design, configuration, and troubleshooting.
• Knowledge of scripting languages such as Python or Perl.
• Experience with configuration and automation tools such as Ansible, Puppet, or Chef.
• Familiarity with enterprise change management and ITIL-based operational processes.