Cisco Identity Services Engineer (ISE) Lead

THE BISON GROUP LLC; Washington (District of Columbia); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

The Bison Group, LLC is seeking a senior ISE engineer in the Washington, DC area to lead policy engineering, C2C onboarding, and enterprise access-control initiatives. You will design, test, implement, and sustain Cisco ISE authentication and authorization policies and support integrations with AD, PKI, and network devices.

Responsibilities include Tier 3 troubleshooting, ISE health maintenance, upgrade planning, and collaboration with security, network, and service-management teams.

Qualifications

• Active TS/SCI clearance with CI Polygraph eligibility.
• IAT Level II cert (e.g., Security+) or equivalent and DoD-ready.
• CCNA and Cisco ISE certifications; experience with ISE deployments.
• Experience designing and sustaining Cisco ISE authentication/authorization policies.
• Familiarity with 802.1X, EAP‑TLS, MAB, RADIUS, TACACS+ and CoA concepts.
• Experience integrating ISE with AD, PKI, switches, and endpoint tools.

Responsibilities

• Lead ISE and C2C policy engineering and policy lifecycle.
• Implement enterprise access-control methods and posture policies.
• Develop C2C enforcement workflows and remediation actions.
• Lead ISE integrations with AD, PKI, and network devices.
• Provide Tier 3 troubleshooting for complex ISE issues.
• Maintain health of distributed ISE deployments and perform upgrades.

Skills

Cisco ISE

802.1X

EAP‑TLS

RADIUS

TACACS+

pxGrid

Active Directory

Policy engineering

Scripting (Python/PowerShell)

Education

High School/GED + 9 Yrs

Associates + 7 Yrs

Bachelors +5 Yrs

Masters +3 Yrs

PhD +1 Yrs

Tools

Python

REST APIs

Ansible

PowerShell

Job description

Description

• Lead ISE and C2C policy engineering
  Design, create, test, implement, document, and sustain ISE authentication and authorization policies, authorization profiles, identity source sequences, endpoint groups, profiling rules, posture policies, and exception workflows.
• Implement enterprise access-control methods
  Engineer and support 802.1X, EAP-TLS, MAB, RADIUS, TACACS+, guest access, contractor access, certificate-based authentication, and network-device administration.
• Develop C2C enforcement and remediation workflows
  Implement policy actions using dynamic VLAN assignment, downloadable ACLs, Security Group Tags, Change of Authorization, reauthentication, restricted-access controls, quarantine actions, and endpoint-remediation workflows.
• Lead ISE integrations
  Integrate and sustain ISE connections with Active Directory, PKI and certificate authorities, endpoint-management tools, endpoint-security platforms, vulnerability-management tools, SIEMs, pxGrid clients, switches, VPN infrastructure, and other approved security services.
• Provide Tier 3 troubleshooting and incident support
  Resolve complex authentication, authorization, certificate, profiling, posture, endpoint, CoA, RADIUS, TACACS+, and network-device issues. Analyze ISE Live Logs, session traces, alarms, packet captures, switch logs, support bundles, and endpoint data to determine root cause and corrective actions.
• Maintain ISE platform health and resiliency
  Administer and troubleshoot the distributed ISE deployment, including PAN, secondary Administration node, PSNs, MnT, pxGrid, node groups, replication, backups, restores, certificates, performance, capacity, and disaster-recovery procedures.
• Plan and execute lifecycle activities
  Support ISE upgrades, patches, certificate renewals, policy migrations, technology refresh, node recovery, backup validation, and approved maintenance activities. Develop implementation, test, validation, rollback, and post-change review plans.
• Establish technical standards and change controls
  Develop and maintain policy naming standards, configuration baselines, test procedures, implementation checklists, rollback procedures, SOPs, and knowledge articles. Review proposed policy changes for operational impact, dependencies, and access risk.
• Lead C2C onboarding and operational improvement
  Support pilot efforts, site onboarding, phased rollout, transition to operations, recurring‑incident reduction, and continuous improvement of C2C policy and service delivery.
• Provide technical leadership and escalation management
  Mentor teammates; provide technical guidance to engineering and operations teams; coordinate Cisco TAC cases; and produce complete escalation packages, root‑cause analyses, and after‑action reports.

Requirements

You'll Bring These Qualifications:

• Active TS/SCI clearance with ability to obtain CI Polygraph prior to start
• Current DoW 8140/8570-aligned IAT Level II certification, such as CompTIA Security+, or ability to obtain prior to start.
• Current Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification.
• Current Cisco Certified Specialist – Security Identity Management Implementation credential.
• 5+ years of hands‑on Cisco ISE engineering or administration experience in an enterprise or mission environment.
• Demonstrated experience designing, creating, testing, and sustaining Cisco ISE authentication and authorization policies.
• Demonstrated experience with 802.1X, EAP‑TLS, MAB, RADIUS, TACACS+, CoA, dynamic VLAN assignment, dACLs, SGTs, and enterprise network‑access‑control concepts.
• Demonstrated experience integrating Cisco ISE with Active Directory, PKI/certificate services, switches, and endpoint‑management or endpoint‑security platforms.
• Experience troubleshooting complex wired access‑control issues across Cisco ISE, switches, endpoints, identity services, and certificate infrastructure.
• Experience with Cisco ISE distributed deployments, including PAN, secondary Administration node, PSN, Monitoring, pxGrid, node registration, replication, backup/restore, and operational health monitoring.
• Familiarity with ticketing systems, change‑management processes, incident management, problem management, and customer‑facing operational support.
• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively with network, security, endpoint, identity, and service‑management teams.

Desired

• Cisco Certified Network Professional Security (CCNP Security) or current equivalent Cisco security professional certification.
• Cisco certified Network Professional Enterprise (CCNP Enterprise) certification.
• Cisco Implementing and Configuring Cisco Identity Services Engine (SISE) training or equivalent demonstrated ISE engineering experience.
• Cisco DoD Comply‑to‑Connect (C2C) training or demonstrated experience implementing C2C‑aligned ISE capabilities.
• CompTIA Network+, CySA+, CASP+, or other relevant network/security certifications.
• Experience with Cisco Catalyst Center, Cisco SD‑Access, TrustSec, pxGrid, Cisco Secure Client, Cisco Secure Firewall, and/or network segmentation technologies.
• Experience with scripting and automation using Python, REST APIs, Ansible, PowerShell, or similar tools.
• Experience supporting large‑scale DoW, federal, intelligence‑community, or other regulated enterprise environments.

Minimum Education & Experience (One of the following)

• High School/GED + 9 Yrs,
• Associates + 7 Yrs
• Bachelors +5 Yrs
• Masters + 3 Yrs
• PhD +1 Yrs

The Bison Group, LLC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, national origin, age, genetic information, or protected veteran status and will not be discriminated against on the basis of disability. If you’d like to view a copy of the company’s affirmative action plan for protected veterans/individuals with disabilities or our policy statement, please email [e-mail]. If you have a disability and you believe you need a reasonable accommodation in order to search for a job opening or to submit an online application, please e‑mail [e-mail]. This mailbox is created exclusively to assist disabled job seekers whose disability prevents them from being able to apply online. Only emails sent for this purpose will be returned. Emails left for other purposes, such as following up on an application or technical issues not related to a disability, will not receive a response.

Disclaimer

This position offers a wage or salary range based on market data and internal pay policies. This range is a good‑faith estimate and may vary depending on qualifications, experience, and other factors. We do not request or use prior compensation history in making employment decisions. Any voluntary disclosure of prior wage information may be considered to support a higher offer but will not be used to justify a lower offer.

The Bison Group offers benefit options including medical, dental, vision, life, disability insurance, and accrued PTO including vacation, sick leave and holidays.

The listed pay range serves as a general guideline rather than a guaranteed salary. Final compensation is determined by a variety of factors including, but not limited to, role‑specific responsibilities; candidate qualifications such as education, skills, and mission‑aligned experience; market data, business considerations, internal equity, and any applicable legal or bargaining agreements (if any).