Palo Alto Network Engineer Security Clearance

Position: Palo Alto Network Engineer with Security Clearance
Job Title:

Palo Alto Firewall Engineer

Location:

Springfield, VA
Type:
Contract To Hire
Compensation: $80/hr w2 Benefits available Conversion Salary: $150,000 annually plus benefits
Work Model:
Onsite Security Clearance:
Active TS/SCI clearance and the ability to successfully pass and maintain a U.S. Government polygraph Responsibilities

• Lead the design, requirements analysis, testing, integration, and implementation of secure network architectures centered on the Palo Alto Networks ecosystem.

• Serve as the lead technical authority for administering, configuring, and troubleshooting Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewalls (NGFWs) across a hybrid enterprise environment.

• Engineer and implement solutions for customer Change Requests (CRQs); assess impacts on enterprise transport and security activities and provide technically sound recommendations.

• Serve as the technical representative for assigned projects and coordinate issues with the appropriate owners, organizations, contract leadership, and customer leadership.

• Manage the full lifecycle of Palo Alto hardware and software, including complex hardware refreshes, PAN-OS upgrades, legacy-platform sustainment, physical troubleshooting, and line-card replacements.

• Develop, oversee, and maintain configuration-management processes, network architecture diagrams, technical documentation, integration and test plans, and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Palo Alto security platforms.

• Use Panorama for centralized policy management, including templates, device groups, inheritance, and consistent configuration across a diverse fleet of physical and virtual firewalls.

• Configure and maintain advanced security capabilities and profiles, including App-, User-, Content-, SSL Decryption, Wild Fire, NAT, IPSec VPNs, and threat prevention.

• Oversee security-incident reporting, documentation, investigation, and corrective-action development.

• Act as a liaison to contract/customer management and the government Designated Approving Authority (DAA) regarding network-security status, policies, procedures, and risks.

• Evaluate and report on new and emerging network-security and communications technologies to improve network capacity, performance, reliability, standardization, and security.

• Provide mentorship and technical oversight to junior engineers and serve as an escalation point for complex troubleshooting.

• Follow all customer network-security processes and procedures, maintain compliance with Government and QA standards, and ensure service-performance indicators are met or exceeded. Requirements

• Security Clearance:
Active TS/SCI clearance and the ability to successfully pass and maintain a U.S. Government polygraph.

• A minimum of 7+ years of hands-on experience administering, configuring, and troubleshooting Palo Alto Networks NGFWs in large-scale enterprise/global environments.

• Active Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Engineer (PCNSE) certification.

• DoD 8140.01 and DoD 8570.01-M IAT Level II compliance (for example, Security+ CE).

• Ability to obtain and maintain a CSSP Infrastructure Support certification within 120 days of the start date.

• Deep practical knowledge of legacy Gen 2/Gen 3 Palo Alto hardware, including PA-3000 and PA-5000 series platforms, legacy CLI, hardware troubleshooting, and line-card replacements.

• Experience deploying and managing modern PAN-OS architectures, including Prisma Access (SASE), Prisma SD-WAN, and VM-Series virtual firewalls in cloud environments such as AWS, Azure, GCP, or private-cloud.

• Proven expertise with Panorama for centralized policy management, template/device-group inheritance, and configuration deployment across a hybrid firewall fleet.

• Advanced understanding of BGP, OSPF, IPSec VPNs, NAT, TLS/SSL, mutual TLS (mTLS), HTTP, SAML, OAuth, OCSP revocation, DoD PKI, Kerberos, LDAP, and Active Directory.

• Experience with F5 technologies, including APM, AFM, and SSL Orchestrator (SSLO), and troubleshooting TLS/SSL handshake/connection issues.

• Strong network design, engineering, implementation, and troubleshooting skills, including ROM equipment lists and cost estimates.

• Knowledge of…