Role: Senior Akamai Engineer
Position Summary
We are seeking an experienced Senior Akamai Engineer to design, implement, operate, and optimize enterprise Akamai solutions supporting highly available, secure, and high-performing internet-facing applications.
The ideal candidate will have strong hands-on experience with Akamai CDN, Web Application Firewall (WAF), DNS, DDoS protection, bot management, API security, traffic management, and edge security technologies. The engineer will work closely with application, network, cloud, cybersecurity, DevOps, and infrastructure teams to onboard applications to Akamai, implement security controls, troubleshoot complex production issues, and continuously improve application performance and security.
The role requires strong knowledge of HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, TLS/SSL, web application architecture, networking, caching, APIs, security controls, and automation.
Key Responsibilities
Akamai Platform Engineering
· Design, configure, implement, and support enterprise Akamai solutions for internet-facing applications and APIs.
· Manage and optimize Akamai CDN configurations, caching policies, origin connectivity, content delivery, redirects, and application acceleration.
· Configure and maintain Akamai properties using Property Manager and associated configuration capabilities.
· Support application onboarding and migration to the Akamai platform.
· Design reusable Akamai configuration patterns and standards to accelerate application onboarding.
· Perform configuration reviews, testing, activation, validation, and production deployment.
· Manage Akamai configurations across development, test, staging, and production environments.
Web Application & API Security
· Configure and manage Akamai App & API Protector / Web Application Firewall (WAF) policies.
· Implement protections against common web vulnerabilities and OWASP Top 10 attack patterns.
· Analyze security events and tune WAF rules to reduce false positives while maintaining appropriate protection.
· Implement and maintain DDoS protection, rate controls, IP/Geo controls, reputation-based protections, and API security policies.
· Support bot detection and mitigation using Akamai bot-management capabilities where applicable.
· Partner with cybersecurity teams to investigate malicious traffic, application attacks, and emerging threats.
· Review application and API traffic patterns and recommend appropriate edge-security controls.
DNS, Networking & Traffic Management
· Configure and support Akamai DNS and traffic-management capabilities.
· Troubleshoot DNS resolution, routing, latency, connectivity, and origin-server issues.
· Work with HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, TCP/IP, TLS/SSL, certificates, load balancers, proxies, firewalls, and cloud networking.
· Configure traffic-routing and failover strategies to improve application availability and resiliency.
· Support certificate lifecycle management and secure TLS configurations.
· Diagnose issues across client, edge, network, Akamai, load-balancer, and origin layers.
Performance Optimization
· Analyze application performance and identify opportunities to improve response time, availability, and end-user experience.
· Optimize cache behavior, TTLs, compression, redirects, origin connectivity, and edge-delivery configurations.
· Analyze cache hit/miss behavior and identify opportunities to increase edge offload.
· Work with application teams to improve application delivery and reduce unnecessary origin traffic.
· Monitor Akamai platform and application performance and proactively address performance degradation.
Monitoring, Troubleshooting & Production Support
· Provide advanced troubleshooting for complex Akamai and application-delivery issues.
· Analyze HTTP response codes, headers, logs, DNS responses, TLS handshakes, caching behavior, and network traces.
· Troubleshoot issues such as 403/404/5xx errors, origin failures, cache inconsistencies, certificate problems, DNS issues, WAF blocks, and application-performance degradation.
· Participate in major incident and problem-management activities.
· Perform root-cause analysis and develop permanent corrective actions.
· Coordinate with Akamai support and engineering teams for complex product or platform issues.
· Participate in production support and on-call activities where required.
Security, Governance & Compliance
· Ensure Akamai configurations comply with enterprise cybersecurity policies and architecture standards.
· Maintain appropriate security baselines for WAF, TLS, DNS, APIs, and edge configurations.
· Support vulnerability remediation and security-audit activities.
· Maintain configuration documentation, operational procedures, runbooks, and troubleshooting guides.
· Support change-management and compliance requirements for regulated enterprise environments.
Technical Leadership
· Serve as a subject-matter expert for Akamai CDN and Edge Security technologies.
· Provide technical guidance to application, infrastructure, cloud, DevOps, and security teams.
· Lead technical reviews for complex application onboarding and Akamai architecture decisions.
· Mentor junior and mid-level Akamai engineers.
· Develop engineering standards, reference configurations, operational procedures, and best practices.
· Drive continuous improvement and automation across Akamai engineering and operations.
Required Technical Skills
· 7+ years of experience in CDN, network engineering, web infrastructure, cybersecurity, or related technologies, with strong hands-on Akamai experience.
· Strong experience with Akamai CDN and Property Manager.
· Hands-on experience with Akamai App & API Protector / WAF.
· Experience with Akamai security and traffic-management capabilities.
· Strong understanding of DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, TCP/IP, TLS/SSL, certificates, proxies, load balancers, and firewalls.
· Experience troubleshooting internet-facing web applications and APIs.
· Strong understanding of caching, origin architecture, content delivery, and application acceleration.
· Experience with Akamai APIs and CLI tools.
· Working knowledge of Git and configuration/version-management practices.
