Senior Network Consultant

Job Description: The Sterling Federal Network Consultant will serve as a hands-on individual contributor supporting Sterling’s federal customers with the assessment, design, deployment, optimization, and troubleshooting of secure network infrastructure, with a primary focus on Fortinet technologies. This role will work directly with customers, sales teams, vendor partners, and Sterling engineers to deliver practical, mission-aligned network and security solutions for Federal Civilian, Department of Defense (DoD), Intelligence Community (IC), and other public sector environments.

The consultant will translate complex technical requirements into scalable Fortinet-based architectures, implementation plans, and operational recommendations. This individual will support customer engagements across the full lifecycle, including discovery, solution validation, configuration, migration planning, deployment support, documentation, knowledge transfer, and post-implementation optimization.

We are looking for a highly capable network and security consultant with strong federal experience, deep Fortinet product expertise, and the ability to operate independently in complex environments while representing Sterling with professionalism, technical credibility, and customer-first execution.

Job Experience Requirements: Must have Federal Civilian, DoD, IC, or public sector experience. The ideal candidate will possess deep, hands-on experience with Fortinet solutions, including FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiSwitch, FortiAP, FortiClient/EMS, FortiAuthenticator, FortiNAC, FortiWeb, secure SD-WAN, VPN, segmentation, high availability, logging, monitoring, and enterprise/federal security architecture. The consultant should understand how to design, implement, and troubleshoot secure network environments that support federal requirements for modernization, resilience, Zero Trust adoption, compliance, and mission operations. Experience with adjacent infrastructure and security vendors such as Cisco, Palo Alto, Juniper, Dell, HPE/Aruba, VMware, Microsoft, and Red Hat is also valuable.

Federal Customer Consulting & Delivery

• Lead technical discovery sessions with federal customers to understand mission requirements, existing network architecture, security posture, operational constraints, and modernization objectives.
• Develop Fortinet-based network and security designs that align with customer requirements, federal operating environments, and Sterling delivery standards.
• Configure, deploy, validate, and optimize Fortinet solutions across firewall, switching, wireless, VPN, SD-WAN, segmentation, authentication, logging, and centralized management use cases.
• Troubleshoot complex network and security issues across routing, switching, firewall policy, VPN, high availability, SD-WAN, and Fortinet Security Fabric integrations.
• Produce clear technical documentation, including implementation plans, configuration guides, migration plans, diagrams, as-built documentation, and customer knowledge-transfer materials.

Technical Advisory & Presales Support

• Partner with Sterling sales and engineering teams to shape Fortinet-focused solutions for federal customers.
• Support solution validation, whiteboarding, demonstrations, proof-of-concept planning, and technical responses for customer opportunities.
• Explain complex Fortinet networking and security concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders in a clear, practical manner.
• Advise customers on network modernization, Zero Trust network access, secure SD-WAN, segmentation, cloud connectivity, and security operations considerations.
• Collaborate with Fortinet and other vendor partners to validate architectures, resolve technical issues, and align recommendations to product capabilities and customer outcomes.

• Fortinet Network Security: deep hands-on experience with FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiSwitch, FortiAP, FortiClient/EMS, FortiAuthenticator, FortiNAC, FortiWeb, FortiSandbox, and related Fortinet Security Fabric capabilities.
• Firewall & Policy Architecture: ability to design, implement, migrate, and troubleshoot next-generation firewall policies, NAT, UTM profiles, IPS, application control, SSL inspection, routing, and high availability.
• Secure SD-WAN & VPN: experience designing and supporting Fortinet secure SD-WAN, IPSec VPN, SSL VPN, remote access, multi-site connectivity, and resilient WAN architectures.
• Routing, Switching & Wireless: strong understanding of routing protocols, switching, VLANs, segmentation, wireless architectures, NAC, QoS, and network troubleshooting in enterprise and federal environments.
• Consulting Delivery: proven ability to lead technical workshops, create implementation plans, perform migrations, conduct knowledge transfer, and communicate effectively with customers and internal stakeholders.