Network & Security Infrastructure Lead

Confidential; Abu Dhabi; On-site; AED 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

Confidential is building a digital-first, AI-enabled financial services organisation in the UAE. We seek a Network & Security Infrastructure Lead to set strategy and architecture for cloud-based connectivity and security across a fully automated, auditable environment.

You will drive zero-trust across workforce, service, and AI agent access, oversee regulatory-compliant connectivity, and partner with security, cloud, and SRE teams to deliver resilient infrastructure.

Qualifications

• 8+ years' experience in network and security infrastructure within financial services or highly regulated environment.
• Direct experience building or operating SWIFT infrastructure and CSP compliance.
• Experience connecting to national payment systems or central-bank services.

Responsibilities

• Own the cloud-hosted SWIFT environment strategy and secure-zone architecture.
• Lead connectivity to UAE payment systems and CBUAE services with monitoring and failover testing.
• Define architecture and standards for network security (NGFW, DDoS, IDS/IPS, DNS, edge controls).
• Establish network-as-code with version control, automated pre-deployment testing, drift detection, rollback.
• Lead architecture for carrier interconnects, private cloud connectivity, and in-country cloud regions.
• Develop and govern zero-trust architecture across workforce, service, and AI-agent access.
• Extend zero-trust to AI agents with per-agent identity and mutual traffic controls.
• Drive automated vulnerability management and remediation through controlled release processes.
• Ensure telemetry feeds into SOC/Observability platforms for anomaly detection and incident response.
• Lead disaster recovery and failover exercises with regulatory evidence.

Skills

Network security engineering

Azure and AWS networking

Zero-trust architecture

Infrastructure automation

Vulnerability & remediation

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or Network Engineering

Certifications such as CCNP/CCIE/NSE/PCNSE (advantageous)

Tools

Terraform

NetBox

Nautobot

Batfish

Palo Alto

Fortinet

Cloudflare

Istio

Cilium/eBPF

Microsoft Entra

Job description

We're excited to be partnering with a leading institution in the UAE that is building a digital-first, AI-enabled financial services organisation from the ground up. This is a unique opportunity to join at an early stage and help shape the technology, security, and infrastructure foundations of a business with significant institutional backing and long-term ambition.

If you're passionate about network and security infrastructure, cloud-first environments, zero-trust architecture, and building highly resilient platforms from the ground up, we'd love to hear from you.

As Network & Security Infrastructure Lead, you will set the strategy and architecture for critical connectivity and security infrastructure across a 100% cloud environment. This includes regulated connectivity, SWIFT infrastructure, UAE payment systems and CBUAE connectivity, the cloud-edge perimeter, workforce networking, and zero-trust access for both people and AI agents.

Working closely with Information Security, Cloud, Enterprise IT, AI Platform and Site Reliability Engineering teams, you will lead the team responsible for building and operating a software-defined infrastructure environment where changes are automated, version controlled, auditable, and delivered through established release pipelines.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the strategy for the cloud-hosted SWIFT environment, including secure-zone architecture, gateways, cloud-HSM-backed controls and annual Customer Security Programme compliance.
• Lead connectivity to UAE payment systems and CBUAE services, ensuring environments are monitored, certified and failover-tested.
• Define the architecture and standards for network security, including next-generation firewalls, DDoS protection, intrusion detection and prevention, DNS security and edge controls.
• Establish a network-as-code operating model, with configuration held in version control, automated pre-deployment testing, drift detection and proven rollback capabilities.
• Lead the architecture for carrier interconnects, private cloud connectivity, office networking and connectivity to in-country cloud regions.
• Develop and govern zero-trust architecture across workforce, service and AI-agent access, including identity-aware connectivity, least-privilege access and privileged administrative pathways.
• Extend zero-trust principles to AI agents through per-agent identity, task-based access, mutually authenticated agent-to-tool traffic, behavioural traffic baselining and rapid quarantine controls.
• Drive highly automated vulnerability and remediation practices, using technology to monitor vulnerabilities, assess exposure and accelerate remediation through controlled release processes.
• Ensure network and security telemetry feeds effectively into SOC and observability platforms, supporting anomaly detection, incident response and operational resilience.
• Lead scheduled disaster recovery and failover exercises, ensuring appropriate evidence is retained for regulatory and audit purposes.
• Build and lead the Network & Security Infrastructure team, set technical direction, manage budgets and develop key technology, carrier and security-vendor relationships.

Required Experience

• 8+ years' experience in network and security infrastructure, including experience setting strategy and leading technical teams within financial services or another highly regulated environment.
• Direct experience building or operating SWIFT infrastructure and Customer Security Programme compliance.
• Experience connecting to national payment systems, central-bank services or similarly regulated connectivity environments.
• Demonstrated experience implementing network-as-code, including infrastructure automation, version-controlled configuration and pipeline-based network changes.
• Deep network security engineering experience covering firewalls, DDoS protection, intrusion detection and prevention, segmentation and perimeter security.
• Strong working knowledge of Azure and AWS networking and private cloud connectivity.
• Strong understanding of zero-trust architecture, including identity-aware and least-privilege access.
• Experience with highly automated infrastructure operations, vulnerability management, patching or remediation.
• Experience using AI-assisted engineering or operations tooling with appropriate review, control and auditability.

The technology landscape includes

• Cloud networking: Azure Virtual WAN, AWS Cloud WAN, ExpressRoute, Megaport, SD-WAN, DNS and load balancing.
• Security infrastructure: Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cloudflare, Azure DDoS Protection, intrusion detection/prevention, PKI and HSM-backed key management.
• Network as Code: Terraform, NetBox or Nautobot, Batfish, automated validation and drift detection.
• Regulated connectivity: SWIFT Alliance components, secure-zone architecture, CSP controls and payment-system connectivity.
• Zero Trust: ZTNA/SASE, Microsoft Entra, SPIFFE/SPIRE, Entra Agent ID, mutual TLS, Istio, Cilium/eBPF and privileged access controls.
• Observability & Operations: network telemetry, flow analysis, behavioural baselining, anomaly detection, SIEM/SOC integration and AI-assisted network operations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Network Engineering or a related discipline.
• Network or security certifications such as CCNP/CCIE, NSE or PCNSE, or equivalent security qualifications, would be advantageous.