Senior Network and Security Engineer

CNS Middle East; Dubai; On-site; AED 400,000 - 650,000; Full time

Job summary

CNS Middle East is seeking an experienced Senior Network Security Engineer to design, deploy and hand over enterprise security and data-centre projects across the UAE. The role is hands-on, leading implementations end-to-end—Next-Gen Firewalls, Zero Trust, NAC, F5 application delivery and Cisco ACI—and serving as the technical escalation point for the team.

You will design, deploy, migrate, and operate security platforms, integrate with AD/LDAP, RADIUS/TACACS+, PKI, SIEM and SOAR, and drive

Qualifications

• 10+ years in enterprise networking with 5+ years delivering security projects.
• Bachelor’s degree in CS/EE/IT or equivalent.
• Certifications in network security or data-center technologies (CCNP Security/Enterprise, PCNSE, NSE, F5).

Responsibilities

• Design and architect security and data-centre solutions for CNS customers in UAE.
• Lead end-to-end deployments: staging, configuration, integration, cut-over and post-go-live support.
• Act as L3 escalation for incidents; perform root-cause analysis and ensure SLA targets.

Skills

Next-Gen Firewall

Fortinet Security Fabric

Zero Trust / ZTNA / SASE

Network Access Control

Application delivery

Data-centre fabric

Layer 2/3

Zero-touch SD-WAN

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Telecom Engineering or IT

CCNP Security or CCNP Enterprise / Data Center; PCNSE; Fortinet NSE 7 / FCSS; F5 Certified Technology Specialist (301/302/303)

Tools

FortiManager

FortiAnalyzer

FortiEMS

FortiZTP

FortiSandbox

FortiADC

FortiMail

Cisco ISE

Aruba ClearPass

FortiNAC

Job description

CNS is a technology company that powers the future by providing digital solutions essential to support all enterprise and human development. While growing and managing a robust pool of supplier-partners for the benefit of our clients has always been a priority, we are constantly re-inventing ourselves.

Founded in 1987 with more than 35 years of experience, CNS employs over 320 employees including more than 250 certified engineers. We offer in-depth expertise and a range of best-in-class products that support the digital transformation of all major industries. With offices in three countries, we have an extensive reach into, and regional knowledge of the Middle East markets.

A shift into levering our many years of experience to develop pioneering software in-house will add yet another dimension to our highly innovative solutions-portfolio.

Job Description

Design, deploy and hand over enterprise security and data-centre projects for CNS customers across the UAE. The role is hands-on: the engineer leads implementations end to end - Next-Gen Firewalls, Zero Trust, NAC, F5 application delivery and Cisco ACI - and acts as the technical escalation point for the team.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES

Design and architecture

• Gather customer requirements and produce High-Level Design (HLD) and Low-Level Design (LLD) documents for security and data-centre solutions.
• Design segmentation, firewall policy, Zero Trust access and NAC policy models aligned with customer security standards.
• Review existing customer environments and recommend hardening, migration and consolidation paths.

Deployment and migration

• Lead end-to-end deployments: staging, configuration, integration, cut-over and post-go-live support.
• Plan and execute firewall and load-balancer migrations (policy conversion, rule clean-up, rollback plans) with minimal downtime.
• Integrate security platforms with AD/LDAP, RADIUS/TACACS+, PKI, SIEM and SOAR.
• Write and run User Acceptance Test (UAT) plans and deliver as-built documentation and knowledge transfer to customers.

Operations and support

• Act as L3 escalation for network and security incidents; lead root-cause analysis for major incidents.
• Carry out preventive maintenance (PM) health checks, firmware upgrades and vulnerability remediation within agreed maintenance windows.
• Meet SLA targets on assigned tickets and keep ticketing tools up to date.

Team and customer delivery

• Support pre-sales with solution sizing, BoQ review, SOW and RFP technical responses.
• Present technical status to customer stakeholders and internal management.

Qualifications

Education

Minimum

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Electrical/Telecom Engineering or IT (or equivalent experience).
• At least one of: CCNP Security or CCNP Enterprise / Data Center; PCNSE; Fortinet NSE 7 / FCSS; F5 Certified Technology Specialist (301/302/303).

Desired

• CCIE Security / Data Center / Enterprise.
• Cisco ISE or ACI specialist certification.

Experience

Minimum

• Minimum 10 years in enterprise networking, including 5+ years delivering network security projects.

Desired

• System integrator or managed-services experience in the UAE/GCC.
• Hands-on delivery of multi-vendor firewall and F5 migrations.

Additional Information

Skills & Abilities

Minimum

• Next-Gen Firewall - Palo Alto, FortiGate, Cisco FTD/FMC: HA deployments, policy migration, IPS, URL filtering, SSL decryption, VPN.
• Fortinet Security Fabric - FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, FortiEMS, FortiZTP, FortiSandbox, FortiADC, FortiMail.
• Zero Trust / ZTNA / SASE - ZTNA rollouts replacing legacy VPN; IdP integration (Entra ID, Okta) and MFA.
• Network Access Control - Cisco ISE, Aruba ClearPass, FortiNAC: 802.1X, MAB, guest/BYOD, posture, profiling, TrustSec.
• Application delivery - F5 BIG-IP LTM, GTM, Advanced WAF, APM; F5OS / rSeries / VELOS.
• Data-centre fabric - Cisco ACI (APIC), Nexus 9000: fabric bring-up, tenants/VRF/BD/EPG, L3Out, service graphs.
• Layer 2 / Layer 3 - VLANs, STP, LACP, vPC; BGP, OSPF, EIGRP, VRF, HSRP/VRRP, VXLAN EVPN.
• Zero-touch SD-WAN - Fortinet SD-WAN (FortiZTP + FortiManager) large-scale branch rollouts.

Desired

• Security operations - SIEM (Splunk, QRadar), EDR, vulnerability scanners, CIS hardening.
• Automation - Python, Ansible, REST APIs, Terraform for bulk configuration and policy migration.
• Clear written English for HLD/LLD, method statements, change requests and customer reports.
• Valid UAE driving licence; willing to work maintenance windows and join an on-call rota.

Compliance with policies and procedures based on the ISO standards adopted by CNS.