Principal Security Engineer

Verizon • Basking Ridge, NJ

3d • Hybrid

About The Position

As a member of Verizon’s Security Engineering & Operations team, the Principal Security Engineer is responsible for the end-to-end administration, maintenance, and daily operation of enterprise Public/Private Key Infrastructure (PKI) and Identity & Access Management (IAM) systems. The role serves as an operational subject matter expert and primary technical contact for enterprise customer teams, supporting their PKI integrations while maintaining highly available services and advancing security initiatives.

The engineer supports a PKI vendor platform migration, customer application cutovers and integrations, certificate lifecycle automation, key management, system upgrades, platform monitoring, and customer troubleshooting. The role also develops AI-enabled tools and automation for PKI and Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC), supports customer-facing RESTful APIs, and prepares enterprise platforms for PQC readiness. Responsibilities span PKI infrastructure and systems engineering, customer support, operational documentation, vulnerability remediation, and tier-3 incident response.

This is a hybrid role with a defined work location, working from home and in the office at least three days per week. The scheduled workweek is 40 hours, with participation in an on-call rotation for critical service support.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree or four or more years of work experience.
• Six or more years of relevant experience, demonstrated through work and/or military experience or specialized training.
• Experience developing AI tools, scripts, or agents—such as Python AI/ML libraries, LLM APIs, or automated diagnostic agents—to build custom solutions for PKI or security operations.
• Experience with RESTful API integration, management, and troubleshooting in client environments.
• Willingness to travel up to 25% or less of the time.

Nice To Haves

• Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Systems Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Strong background in customer-facing technical support, custom application integration troubleshooting, ticket management such as Jira, and maintaining service SLAs and KPIs.
• Hands-on operational experience with PKI protocols and standards including X.509, PKCS, OCSP, TLS/SSL, S/MIME, IPsec, and LDAP.
• Production experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) environments.
• Proficiency writing and modifying operational automation scripts using Python, Shell/Bash, Java, or PHP.
• Ability to participate in scheduled on-call coverage, including evenings and weekends during an assigned rotation.
• Familiarity or experience with PQC standards, algorithms, and transition strategies.
• Background or experience in systems engineering, including infrastructure design, reliability, capacity planning, or system architecture.
• Hands-on experience or familiarity with AWS security and infrastructure platforms, including Cloud HSMs, AWS Private CA, KMS, IAM, and EC2.
• Familiarity with enterprise ticketing, incident tracking, and project management tools such as Jira, ServiceNow, or Confluence.
• Knowledge of or hands-on experience with PKI and certificate management platforms such as EJBCA, Keyfactor, DigiCert, RSA, OpenXPKI, or Microsoft CA.
• Practical experience deploying, managing, and supporting HSMs such as Entrust (nShield), Thales/Luna, or Utimaco.
• Experience with monitoring, performance metrics, and alerting tools such as Nagios, Zabbix, or Prometheus.
• Experience with web servers or containers such as Apache, Tomcat, or Nginx, and Windows Server administration.
• Working knowledge of database management for operational triage, including Oracle, SQL, or PostgreSQL.
• Relevant industry certifications such as RHCSA, AWS Certified Security or SysOps, CISSP, CISA, or ITIL v3/v4.

Responsibilities

• Lead operational execution and define end-to-end test plans for the PKI vendor platform migration.
• Serve as a primary technical contact for enterprise customer teams, supporting application cutovers, front-end customization, and back-end integration with the new vendor platform.
• Log, track, and prioritize technical customer queries through ticketing platforms such as Jira; troubleshoot integration issues, conduct root-cause analysis, and deliver patches or hotfixes.
• Facilitate software delivery and interoperability testing for customer applications using PKI, ensuring compliance with specifications and security policies.
• Maintain customer-facing service-level agreements (SLAs) and operational key performance indicators (KPIs), and use customer query databases to build knowledge resources and improve service readiness.
• Reproduce customer-reported issues in a test lab to validate bug fixes and perform corrective operational actions.
• Develop AI-driven tools, custom algorithms, and intelligent agents to automate diagnostic workflows, customer query triage, log analysis, and certificate management for PKI and PQC systems.
• Build and deploy automated software solutions to prepare enterprise security platforms for PQC readiness and migration.
• Administer and support RESTful APIs used for automated certificate enrollment and infrastructure integration.
• Author and maintain operational runbooks, systems engineering documentation, and customer integration guides.
• Ensure operational readiness of PKI environments and maintain the availability and functionality of Certificate Authorities, Registration Authorities, and key management systems.
• Install, configure, maintain, and support enterprise Hardware Security Modules (HSMs).
• Manage certificate lifecycles, including automated issuance, discovery, renewal, revocation, and deployment across applications, APIs, cloud environments, servers, and network devices.
• Perform routine system patching and operating-system maintenance, capacity planning, and proactive vulnerability remediation across PKI host servers.
• Participate in an on-call rotation to provide rapid tier-3 operational support, incident triage, and escalation resolution for critical service disruptions.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision benefits.
• Short- and long-term disability insurance.
• Basic and supplemental life insurance and AD&D insurance.
• Identity theft protection, pet insurance, and group home and auto insurance.
• Matched 401(k) savings plan.
• Up to 8 company-paid holidays per year and up to 6 personal days per year.
• Paid parental leave.
• Adoption assistance.
• Tuition assistance.
• Potential premium pay, including overtime, shift differential, holiday pay, or allowances, depending on the role.
• Up to 15 days of vacation per year for newly hired employees, increasing with additional service.
• Other incentives and an award-winning total rewards package.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Principal