Senior Cybersecurity Firewall Engineer with Security Clearance

Akumen, Inc. delivers mission-focused technology, cybersecurity, and cloud solutions that enable federal agencies to modernize infrastructure, strengthen security, and achieve operational excellence. We are seeking an experienced Senior Cybersecurity Firewall Engineer to design, implement, secure, and maintain enterprise firewall infrastructure supporting mission-critical federal environments. The ideal candidate is a hands-on cybersecurity engineer with deep expertise in enterprise firewalls, network segmentation, VPN technologies, and Zero Trust security principles.

This role will lead firewall architecture, policy management, security hardening, and incident response efforts while ensuring compliance with federal cybersecurity standards.

Key Responsibilities
Design, implement, configure, and maintain enterprise firewall solutions in high-availability production environments.
Develop, manage, and optimize firewall security policies, ACLs, NAT configurations, VPN tunnels, and network segmentation.
Perform firewall rule reviews, policy cleanup, and change management while ensuring compliance with organizational security requirements.
Support implementation of Zero Trust Architecture, micro-segmentation, and secure network access solutions.
Troubleshoot complex network connectivity and security issues across firewalls, routers, switches, load balancers, and VPN technologies.
Monitor firewall health, performance, logging, and security events while responding to incidents and vulnerabilities.
Conduct firewall security assessments, risk analyses, and configuration audits in accordance with NIST, DISA STIGs, and agency security requirements.
Collaborate with cloud, infrastructure, and application teams to securely integrate enterprise systems and cloud environments.
Develop and maintain network diagrams, security documentation, standard operating procedures, and implementation guides.
Support Authority to Operate (ATO) activities, vulnerability remediation, continuous monitoring, and cybersecurity compliance initiatives.

Minimum Required Qualifications:

Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field. Relevant experience may be substituted for a degree.
7+ years of experience administering enterprise firewall and network security technologies.
Hands-on experience with one or more enterprise firewall platforms, including Palo Alto, Cisco Firepower/ASA, Fortinet Forti Gate, Check Point, or Juniper SRX.
Strong understanding of TCP/IP, routing, switching, VLANs, VPNs (IPSec/SSL), NAT, ACLs, DNS, and network protocols.
Experience implementing network segmentation and Zero Trust security architectures.
Experience supporting security compliance frameworks such as NIST 800-53, RMF, DISA STIGs, or CIS Benchmarks.

Preferred Qualifications:

CISSP, PCNSE, CCNP Security, Fortinet NSE, CCIE Security, or equivalent cybersecurity certification.
Experience securing Azure Government, AWS Gov Cloud, or hybrid cloud environments.

Experience with IDS/IPS, web application firewalls (WAF), Secure Web Gateways, and network access control solutions.

Experience with SIEM platforms such as Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, or QRadar.
Familiarity with automation using Power Shell, Python, Ansible, or REST APIs for firewall administration.
Experience supporting federal civilian or Department of Defense environments. Clearance:
A minimum of an active Secret security clearance is required Akumen, Inc. is an equal employment opportunity employer. All employment decisions are made based on qualifications, merit, and business needs, and without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, disability status, genetic information, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

We are committed to a respectful and inclusive workplace where all individuals have the opportunity to succeed. Akumen, Inc. maintains a drug-free workplace consistent with applicable local, state, and federal laws.