Zero Trust Security Engineer

CC Pace Systems•Vienna, VA

18h

About The Position

The Zero Trust Security Engineer is responsible for driving the implementation of Zero Trust security rules, including formal requests to firewall teams, ongoing coordination, validation of changes, and post-implementation verification. This role is execution-focused and serves as the single point of accountability for ensuring Zero Trust rules are implemented correctly, completely, and auditably across firewall and security platforms.

Requirements

Hands-on experience working with enterprise firewalls (Palo Alto preferred)
Strong understanding of user-based and application-aware firewall policies
Experience submitting and managing firewall rule requests in enterprise environments
Ability to validate security rule implementations and troubleshoot access issues
Strong coordination and communication skills across technical teams

Nice To Haves

Experience implementing Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) solutions
Familiarity with IAM, Entra ID groups, AD groups, and RBAC models
Experience integrating firewall rules with application onboarding frameworks
Knowledge of audit, compliance, and security reporting requirements

Responsibilities

Rule Implementation & Coordination
Translate Zero Trust analysis outputs into formal firewall and security rule requests
Submit detailed implementation requests to firewall teams, including:
Source identities (users, groups, roles)
Destination applications, addresses, and services
Required ports, protocols, and application IDs
Ensure requests meet firewall team standards and contain all required technical details
Cross-Team Execution
Act as the primary liaison between Zero Trust, IAM, firewall engineering, and application teams
Track firewall requests from submission through completion
Resolve implementation questions, clarifications, or discrepancies with firewall engineers
Validation & Verification
Validate that implemented firewall rules exactly match approved Zero Trust requirements
Perform post-implementation testing to confirm:
Authorized access works as expected
Unauthorized access is blocked
Identify and remediate misconfigurations, partial implementations, or policy drift
Audit & Lifecycle Management
Ensure all implemented rules are properly tagged, documented, and traceable to application and Zero Trust requirements
Maintain implementation records for audit, compliance, and reporting
Support ongoing refinement of Zero Trust rules as application access requirements evolve