Network Security Specialist Senior (SWG)

Global Payment Holding Company•Cincinnati, OH

6d•Hybrid

About The Position

This position is hybrid, requiring 3 days per week in either our Cincinnati, OH (preferred) or Atlanta, GA office. This role is responsible for strengthening, modernizing, and evolving our secure access and network security platforms across a global enterprise environment, while leading the organization's Zero Trust transformation journey. This is a hands-on technical leadership role focused primarily on Secure Web Gateway (SWG), Proxy, SASE, Secure Access, and Zero Trust architectures, with responsibility for driving strategy, architecture, adoption, and continuous improvement across related network security capabilities, including IPS/IDS and firewall-adjacent controls. Our core platforms include Zscaler (ZIA / ZPA) and Palo Alto Networks technologies, including Panorama, on-prem NGFW, cloud NGFW, Threat Prevention, and Prisma Access. The role also includes participation in a rotating on-call schedule for incidents, acting as a senior escalation point for major issues affecting secure access, proxy, SASE, or related network security services, and contributing to post-incident analysis and readiness activities.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in a related field and 12+ years of experience, or equivalent practical experience, with extensive experience in network security and security engineering within large-scale enterprise environments.
Deep hands-on expertise with Zscaler technologies and Secure Access architectures, including ZIA, ZPA, SWG, Proxy, SASE, SSL Inspection, Traffic Steering, and Zero Trust deployments at enterprise scale.
Strong experience with Palo Alto security platforms, including Panorama, NGFW, Threat Prevention, Prisma Access, and cloud-delivered security services.
Expert-level knowledge of networking and security fundamentals, including TCP/IP, TLS, DNS, routing, NAT, certificates, identity-aware access, cloud networking, and Zero Trust principles.
Demonstrated ability to lead large-scale security initiatives, influence architecture and technical direction, establish engineering standards, and drive operational maturity.
Experience serving as a senior escalation point for major incidents and complex enterprise-wide issues, balancing security, resiliency, operational efficiency, and user experience in global environments.
Proven leadership, mentoring, and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively across security, infrastructure, cloud, application, operations, and executive teams.
Must be a US Citizen or Green Card Holder.
This position is not eligible for visa sponsorship, now or in the future.

Nice To Haves

Experience developing automation and Infrastructure-as-Code solutions using Terraform, Python, APIs, Git, and CI/CD pipelines to improve operational efficiency and platform consistency.
Experience with WAF technologies (Akamai, Cloudflare, or F5 Distributed Cloud) and application security controls.
Experience with cloud-native and hybrid security architectures across multi-cloud and enterprise environments.
Relevant certifications such as Zscaler (ZCCA/ZCCP), PCNSE, CISSP, CCSP, GIAC, or equivalent advanced security certifications.

Responsibilities

Lead the organization's Secure Access and Zero Trust transformation journey, providing technical leadership and strategic direction for SASE, SWG, Proxy, Secure Access, and related network security services.
Own the architecture, engineering, and continuous improvement of Zscaler (ZIA/ZPA), Palo Alto (Panorama, NGFW, Threat Prevention, Prisma Access), and associated security platforms across a global enterprise environment.
Design, implement, and optimize scalable security controls and policies for internet access, private application access, SSL inspection, traffic steering, threat prevention, and Zero Trust access models.
Drive operational excellence and platform reliability through standardization, tuning, automation, telemetry improvements, SIEM integration, and data-driven performance metrics.
Lead high-quality change management and major initiatives, including rollout planning, validation, risk mitigation, rollback readiness, and post-implementation reviews.
Serve as the senior technical authority and final escalation point for complex issues, high-risk changes, major incidents, and cross-functional initiatives impacting critical security services.
Mentor engineers and partner with security, infrastructure, operations, application teams, and vendors to establish best practices, improve operational maturity, and deliver secure, resilient, and scalable services.
Participate in a rotating on-call schedule for incidents.
Act as a senior escalation point for major issues affecting secure access, proxy, SASE, or related network security services.
Contribute to post-incident analysis and ensure durable corrective actions are implemented.
Participate in readiness activities, operational reviews, and resilience improvements for critical control-plane services.