Security Engineer IDS & Vulnerability Infrastructure

Security Engineer

Verizon is looking for a Security Engineer to join a specialized team responsible for the deployment, scaling, and operational health of our distributed intrusion detection systems and vulnerability scanning infrastructure. In this role, you will manage a fleet of over 900 Suricata IDS sensors across data center boundaries to monitor traffic on Verizon's management network. You will own the operational lifecycle of this environment, combining physical data center systems engineering with Python and other scripting automation to maintain network visibility, while supporting vulnerability management workflows as needs arise.

Managing this volume of sensors requires a deep understanding of kernel-level performance and automated configuration management to ensure consistent telemetry across the footprint.

Job Responsibilities:

• Orchestrate the operational lifecycle of 900+ Suricata IDS sensors, including system-level performance tuning (CPU affinity, NUMA nodes, and other methods to prevent packet loss on high-throughput interfaces.
• Develop and refine Logstash configurations, utilizing input, filter, mutate, and output stages to ensure telemetry accuracy and downstream data integrity for security analysis.
• Engineer and deploy custom Suricata IDS rules and signatures, utilizing suricata-update to ensure the distributed fleet remains synchronized against evolving threats without manual intervention.
• Automate the vulnerability management pipeline by maintaining and debugging Python and Bash backend code for Nessus scanning to ensure the pipeline runs autonomously via cron.
• Manage the physical hardware lifecycle for Dell servers, including iDRAC administration, RAID configurations, and firmware updates to prevent hardware failures from degrading sensor uptime.
• Execute data center logistics, including cabling, optics selection, passive tapping (Brocade/Gigamon), and the management of power, cooling, and rack-space ticketing to secure physical signal delivery.

We need a collaborative, forward-thinking engineer who actively hunts down coverage gaps, refines logging mechanisms to eliminate false positives, and ensures the uninterrupted visibility of our 900+ sensor fleet.
*** This role can be located in any US based Verizon hub location.***

What we're looking for...

You'll need to have:

• Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience.
• Four or more years of relevant experience required, demonstrated through one or a combination of work and/or military experience, or specialized training.
• Enterprise Linux systems administration (RHEL, Rocky, CentOS) including package management and repository administration.
• Network traffic and protocol analysis (tcpdump, pcap collection, Wireshark, BPF filtering).
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose common encapsulation types and perform deep inspection of protocols including DNS, TLS, HTTP, SSH, SNMP, SMTP, NTP.
• Python or any scripting for infrastructure and backend automation.
• Hands-on experience managing enterprise physical server hardware, out-of-band administration, and data center fiber infrastructure.

Even better if you have one or more of the following:

• Experience with Suricata IDS rule basics, rule creation, and suricata-update rule builds.
• Competency in compiling custom Suricata plugins for feature enhancement.
• Ansible fleet orchestration using playbooks and Jinja templates.
• Experience with Logstash pipelines (input, filter, mutate, output) and Splunk telemetry/dashboards.
• Knowledge of Netflow collection and analysis.
• Understanding of carrier-grade protocols including GTP, Diameter, SIP, and LDAP.
• Experience in data center project management, including hardware build planning, purchasing, and facilities ticketing.

In this hybrid role, you'll have a defined work location that includes working from home and a minimum of three days per week in the office, which will be set by your manager. Employees are responsible for maintaining compliance with hybrid work policies.

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Verizon is an equal opportunity employer. We evaluate qualified applicants without regard to veteran status, disability or other legally protected characteristics.

Our benefits are designed to help you move forward in your career, and in areas of your life outside of Verizon. From health and wellness benefit options including: medical, dental, vision, short and long term disability, basic life insurance, supplemental life insurance, AD&D insurance, identity theft protection, pet insurance and group home & auto insurance. We also offer a matched 401(k) savings plan, up to 8 company paid holidays per year and up to 6 personal days per year, paid parental leave, adoption assistance and tuition assistance, plus other incentives, we've got you covered with our award-winning total rewards package.

Depending on the role, employees have the opportunity to receive compensation in the form of premium pay such as overtime, shift…