Senior Cybersecurity Firewall Engineer

Akumen, Inc. delivers mission-focused technology, cybersecurity, and cloud solutions that enable federal agencies to modernize infrastructure, strengthen security, and achieve operational excellence. We are seeking an experienced Senior Cybersecurity Firewall Engineer to design, implement, secure, and maintain enterprise firewall infrastructure supporting mission-critical federal environments. The ideal candidate is a hands-on cybersecurity engineer with deep expertise in enterprise firewalls, network segmentation, VPN technologies, and Zero Trust security principles. This role will lead firewall architecture, policy management, security hardening, and incident response efforts while ensuring compliance with federal cybersecurity standards. Key Responsibilities

• Design, implement, configure, and maintain enterprise firewall solutions in high-availability production environments.
• Develop, manage, and optimize firewall security policies, ACLs, NAT configurations, VPN tunnels, and network segmentation.
• Perform firewall rule reviews, policy cleanup, and change management while ensuring compliance with organizational security requirements.
• Support implementation of Zero Trust Architecture, micro-segmentation, and secure network access solutions.
• Troubleshoot complex network connectivity and security issues across firewalls, routers, switches, load balancers, and VPN technologies.
• Monitor firewall health, performance, logging, and security events while responding to incidents and vulnerabilities.
• Conduct firewall security assessments, risk analyses, and configuration audits in accordance with NIST, DISA STIGs, and agency security requirements.
• Collaborate with cloud, infrastructure, and application teams to securely integrate enterprise systems and cloud environments.
• Develop and maintain network diagrams, security documentation, standard operating procedures, and implementation guides.
• Support Authority to Operate (ATO) activities, vulnerability remediation, continuous monitoring, and cybersecurity compliance initiatives.

• Bachelor's degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field. Relevant experience may be substituted for a degree.
• 7+ years of experience administering enterprise firewall and network security technologies.
• Hands-on experience with one or more enterprise firewall platforms, including Palo Alto, Cisco Firepower/ASA, Fortinet FortiGate, Check Point, or Juniper SRX.
• Strong understanding of TCP/IP, routing, switching, VLANs, VPNs (IPSec/SSL), NAT, ACLs, DNS, and network protocols.
• Experience implementing network segmentation and Zero Trust security architectures.
• Experience supporting security compliance frameworks such as NIST 800-53, RMF, DISA STIGs, or CIS Benchmarks.
• Active Secret Clearance or the ability to obtain and maintain one., * CISSP, PCNSE, CCNP Security, Fortinet NSE, CCIE Security, or equivalent cybersecurity certification.
• Experience securing Azure Government, AWS GovCloud, or hybrid cloud environments.
• Experience with IDS/IPS, web application firewalls (WAF), Secure Web Gateways, and network access control solutions.
• Experience with SIEM platforms such as Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, or QRadar.
• Familiarity with automation using PowerShell, Python, Ansible, or REST APIs for firewall administration.
• Experience supporting federal civilian or Department of Defense environments.

Clearance

• A minimum of an active Secret security clearance is required