Network Security Engineer

Global Payments Inc.•Cincinnati, OH

5d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Network Security Engineer will operate, strengthen, and continuously improve web application firewall, edge security, and application protection platforms across a global enterprise environment. This hands-on engineering role focuses on WAFs, edge security, application-layer controls, bot mitigation, API protection, and traffic inspection, using platforms such as Akamai and Cloudflare. The engineer will support business-critical applications and services by onboarding applications, implementing and tuning security controls, investigating false positives, troubleshooting application access issues, and improving service reliability and effectiveness. Approximately 80% of the role is focused on implementation, configuration, tuning, troubleshooting, and operational improvement, with approximately 20% supporting incident mitigation and response. The role participates in a rotating on-call schedule for incidents affecting WAF, edge security, application protection, or related network security services. On-call work includes initial investigation and mitigation, engaging senior engineers and support teams as needed, and contributing to post-incident reviews and corrective actions. The engineer also participates in readiness exercises, operational reviews, and resilience improvements. The position is hybrid, with three days per week in an office in Cincinnati, Ohio, or Atlanta, Georgia. It is not eligible for visa sponsorship; candidates must be U.S. citizens or Green Card holders.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in cybersecurity, computer science, information technology, networking, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
3–5 years of experience in network security, application security, edge security, security operations, infrastructure engineering, or a related role.
Hands-on experience supporting WAF or application protection technologies, preferably Akamai, Cloudflare, or a comparable WAF/CDN platform.
Experience with application onboarding, policy implementation, traffic analysis, rule tuning, exception handling, troubleshooting, and false-positive reduction.
Working knowledge of TCP/IP, HTTP/S, TLS and certificates, DNS, proxies, load balancing, NAT, routing, and CDN or edge security concepts.
Ability to analyze logs, HTTP transactions, application behavior, and security events to investigate and resolve technical issues.
Strong problem-solving and communication skills, with the ability to work across distributed teams, follow change-management processes, and participate in a rotating on-call schedule.
Must be a U.S. citizen or Green Card holder; the position is not eligible for visa sponsorship, now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Akamai or Cloudflare application, API, or bot protection capabilities.
Familiarity with Terraform, Python, REST APIs, Git, CI/CD pipelines, or other security automation tools.
Experience with SIEM platforms, dashboards, alerts, or reporting for WAF and edge security events.
Familiarity with the OWASP Top 10, API abuse, credential attacks, automated threats, or application-layer denial-of-service patterns.
Exposure to SASE, secure web gateways, Zscaler, Prisma Access, Palo Alto, F5 Distributed Cloud, DDoS protection, or load-balancing technologies.
Experience in a regulated or highly available enterprise environment.
A relevant certification such as Security+, CCNA, Akamai, Cloudflare, GIAC, Palo Alto, or Zscaler.

Responsibilities

Support the operation and continuous improvement of WAF and edge security platforms, focusing on application, API, and bot protection.
Configure and tune Akamai, Cloudflare, or similar platforms, including WAF policies, managed and custom rules, rate limiting, bot controls, and security analytics.
Onboard internet-facing applications and implement appropriate protections, exceptions, and allow/block controls.
Analyze traffic, logs, and security events to identify threats, configuration issues, false positives, and opportunities to improve policies.
Troubleshoot WAF blocks, application access, TLS and certificate, DNS, proxy, and other edge security issues.
Implement and validate changes using established testing, peer-review, rollback, and change-management processes.
Support incident response and maintain operational documentation and runbooks.
Collaborate with application, security, network, infrastructure, and vendor teams.
Participate in a rotating on-call schedule, perform initial investigation and mitigation, engage senior engineers and support teams when needed, and contribute to post-incident reviews and corrective actions.
Participate in readiness exercises, operational reviews, and resilience improvements for critical edge and application security services.