Firewall Operations Engineer

SAIC•Beltsville, MD

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

This is an opening for a Firewall Engineer to support a Department of State (DoS) Bureau of Diplomatic Technology (DT) program. This program provides transparent, interconnected systems and security supporting the DoS in successfully carrying out its U.S. foreign policy mission. DT provides enterprise architecture design, engineering, operations and maintenance support services for servers, networks, firewalls, and enterprise applications across the Department. This is a firewall engineer position within the Vanguard 2025 program, providing general Tier 2 monitoring, configuration, and support to multiple firewalls and perimeter security systems. The position directly supports DoS on-site to provide perimeter security protection to over 80,000 customers globally.

Requirements

Tier 2 support experience in monitoring, management, and troubleshooting of perimeter devices (firewalls, proxies, mail transport agents).
Experience monitoring Service Now application for incident and service requests.
Experience implementing firewall rules and policies.
Troubleshooting experience with Palo Alto, Cloud Palo Alto, FortiGate, CISCO Email Security Appliance (ESA), A10 (load balancer), Proxy platforms, and URL filtering.
Experience analyzing network traffic captures.
Experience escalating issues and monitoring them throughout their lifecycle.
Experience performing recurring maintenance activities like device reboots and software upgrades.
Experience recording and reporting on firewall operations, utilization, and maintenance.
Experience collaborating across Bureaus and Agencies to implement and repair network changes related to perimeter security devices.
Experience supporting Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) by implementing block requests for IPs, Websites, and Email addresses.
Experience updating architecture diagrams using Visio.
Experience monitoring and performing health checks on perimeter security devices.
Experience drafting, coordinating, and publishing outage notifications.
Experience updating shift logs and providing reports to leadership.
Experience maintaining standard operating procedures (SOP), work instructions, and other working documents.
Experience attending troubleshooting calls.

Responsibilities

Provides Tier 2 support in the monitoring, management, and troubleshooting of perimeter devices to include firewalls, proxies, and mail transport agents.
Monitor Service Now application for Firewall Operations (FWOPS) incident and service requests.
Implements firewall rules and policies, perform troubleshooting of firewalls (Palo Alto, Cloud Palo Alto, and FortiGate), CISCO Email Security Appliance (ESA), A10 (load balancer), Proxy platforms, URL filtering across platforms, and analyzing network traffic captures.
Escalates issues as required to Tier 3 staff and monitors issues throughout a problem’s life cycle.
Performs recurring maintenance activities such as device reboots and software upgrades on all devices underneath the Firewall Operations Team.
Records and reports on firewall operations, utilization, and maintenance.
Collaborate across Bureaus and Agencies to implement and repair network changes as they relate to perimeter security devices.
Support Diplomatic Security Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) by implementing block requests for IP’s, Websites, and Email addresses.
Update architecture diagrams using Visio.
Monitor and perform health checks on multiple perimeter security devices.
Draft, coordinate and publish outage notifications as required.
Update shift logs and provide reports to leadership as needed.
Maintain standard operating procedures (SOP), work instructions, and other working documents.
Attend calls requiring a FWOPS team to attend, to include troubleshooting calls.