Software Dev Principal Engineer - DPI experience is a must*

Sonicwall; Pune District; Hybrid; INR 4,000,000 - 7,000,000; Full time

Job summary

SonicWall in Pune, India, is seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the architecture and development of DPI and SSL/TLS decryption engines for our NGFW and virtual firewall products. You will shape high‑throughput L7 inspection and threat prevention capabilities at 10G–100G+ scales.

You will own security services integration, hardware acceleration, and cryptographic hardening, while mentoring senior engineers and driving architecture reviews to ensure robust, scalable security solutions.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of C/C++ experience in high‑performance networking or security engines.
• Strong expertise in SSL/TLS internals (TLS 1.2/1.3, PKI, OpenSSL/BoringSSL).
• Hands-on DPI or security engine development for NGFW or carrier‑grade platforms.
• Proficiency in multi-core, low-latency C/C++ programming and memory optimization.
• Experience debugging and profiling complex multi‑threaded networks.

Responsibilities

• Architect DPI engine for multi-gigabit L7 traffic inspection on NGFW appliances.
• Design SSL/TLS decryption pipeline for security services inspection over encrypted traffic.
• Define integration between decryption layer and security services (AV, IPS, Content Filtering, Application Control).
• Drive hardware acceleration strategy for crypto and pattern-matching workloads.
• Champion security hardening practices and cryptographic standards compliance.
• Own architecture reviews, write specs, define performance benchmarks, and mentor senior engineers.

Skills

C/C++ programming

SSL/TLS internals

DPI engines

Low-latency C/C++

Debugging & profiling

Tools

OpenSSL/BoringSSL

Spirent/IXIA/TRex

Job description

For more than 30 years, SonicWall has delivered a partner-first unified cybersecurity portfolio that helps SMBs, MSPs, and IT teams consolidate network security, endpoint security, security service edge (SSE), and threat response across hybrid environments. By bringing connected technology, real-time threat intelligence, automation, and expert services together, SonicWall helps organizations simplify security operations, achieve better security outcomes, and lower total cost of ownership. Backed by a global ecosystem of more than 17,000 partners, SonicWall delivers enterprise-grade protection built for SMB and mid-market realities.

For more information, visit www.sonicwall.com or follow us on X, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

About the Role

We are seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the architecture and development of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and SSL/TLS Decryption engines for our NGFW appliance and virtual firewall product lines. You will drive the design of high-throughput L7 inspection and threat prevention capabilities - including Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, IPS, Content Filtering, and Application Control - at scale across 10G-100G+ deployments.

Responsibilities

• Architect and evolve the DPI engine for multi-gigabit stream-based L7 traffic inspection on NGFW appliances.
• Lead design of the SSL/TLS decryption pipeline to enable security services inspection over encrypted traffic.
• Define integration strategy between the decryption layer and downstream security services (AV, IPS, Anti-Spyware, Content Filtering, Application Control).
• Drive hardware acceleration strategy for cryptographic and pattern-matching workloads.
• Champion security hardening practices and ensure compliance with modern cryptographic standards.
• Own architecture reviews, author technical specifications, define performance benchmarks, and mentor senior engineers.

Requirements

• 10+ years of C/C++ experience in high-performance networking, packet processing, or L7 security engines on NGFW or carrier-grade platforms.
• Strong expertise in SSL/TLS internals — TLS 1.2/1.3, PKI, certificate management, and OpenSSL/BoringSSL.
• Hands-on experience building or optimizing DPI or security service engines (AV, IPS, Content Filtering, or Application Control) on commercial NGFW platforms.
• Proficiency in multi-core, low-latency C/C++ programming — concurrency, memory optimization, and zero-copy techniques.
• Strong debugging and profiling skills across complex, multi-threaded networking environments.

Nice to Have

• Familiarity with NGFW security services from leading industry vendors.
• Exposure to modern encrypted protocol standards (HTTP/3, QUIC, DoH, ECH/ESNI).
• Experience with virtual or cloud firewall performance tuning.
• Hands-on with network traffic generation and testing tools (Spirent, IXIA, TRex).

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SonicWall is an equal opportunity employer.

We are committed to creating a diverse environment and are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.

At SonicWall, we pride ourselves on recruiting a diverse mix of talented people and providing active security solutions in 100+ countries.

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