Firewall Operations Engineer

Firewall Operations Engineer

Job ID: 2614763

Location: Beltsville, MD, United States

Date Posted: Jul 22, 2026

Category: Information Technology

Subcategory: Network Engineer

Schedule: Full-Time

Shift: Day Job

Travel: No

Minimum Clearance Required: Interim Secret

Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain: Top Secret

Potential for Remote Work: Hybrid

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Job Description

Description

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.

This is a hybrid position based out of Beltsville, MD with ~3 days on-site. Shift is 7:00am-3:30pm, Tuesday-Saturday after training. During the ~6-8-week training period, it will be 5 days on-site Mon-Fri (7:00am-3:30pm).

Responsibilities include:

• 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.

Qualifications

Required Education & Experience:

• Bachelor degree with 9 years or more experience; Masters and 7 years or more experience; May accept additional experience in lieu of degree.
• 2-4 years of experience of in Depth experience using Palo Alto Firewalls and Panorama monitoring tools to troubleshoot and configure a Firewall infrastructure. Strong understanding of networking, proxy, and packet filtering technologies.
• Minimum 3-5 years of IT Customer Support experience (Tier I and/or Tier II).
• First-hand experience with supporting the monitoring and configuration of Firewall/DMZ infrastructure including Network and Application Firewall Packet Filtering technologies (Palo Alto, Palo Alto virtual FW (cloud), FortiGate, Azure Firewall, Cloudflare, Cisco Email Security Appliances (ESA), A10 (Load Balancer), and proxy devices.
• CLI experience preferred.
• Experienced in utilizing network monitoring tools such as NeuralStar.
• Experienced with TCP/IP network implementation and troubleshooting.

Required Clearance:

• US Citizenship.
• Active interim secret clearance or higher with the ability to obtain a top secret clearance.

Target salary range: $120,001 - $160,000. The estimate displayed represents the typical salary range for this position based on experience and other factors.

Overview

SAIC accepts applications on an ongoing basis and there is no deadline.

SAIC is a premier mission integrator focused on advancing the power of technology and innovation to serve and protect our world. Our robust portfolio of offerings across the defense, space, intelligence, and civilian markets includes secure high-end solutions in mission IT, enterprise IT, engineering services, and professional services. We integrate emerging technology, rapidly and securely, into mission critical operations that modernize and enable critical national imperatives.

We are approximately 23,000 strong; driven by mission, united by purpose, and inspired by opportunities. SAIC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Headquartered in Reston, Virginia, SAIC has annual revenues of approximately $7.3 billion. For more information, visit saic.com. For ongoing news, please visit our newsroom.

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