Cybersecurity Sr Engineer

General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc.; Rockville (MD); Hybrid; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

General Dynamics Information Technology, Inc. seeks a Senior Cybersecurity Engineer to design, implement, and operate security infrastructure across on-prem and cloud environments supporting critical workloads.

The ideal candidate is hands-on with Palo Alto firewalls, hybrid-cloud security, and security automation, able to define security patterns, troubleshoot, and automate security operations.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree or 5+ years hands-on cybersecurity engineering experience.
• Experience deploying and troubleshooting Palo Alto Networks firewalls and hybrid security.
• Experience with Terraform, Ansible, Python, Bash, APIs, or similar automation tech.
• Strong networking and security fundamentals; Zero Trust and IAM concepts.
• Ability to obtain and maintain a Public Trust clearance.

Responsibilities

• Design, deploy, manage, and optimize Palo Alto firewalls and policies.
• Secure connectivity between cloud and on-prem environments with proper boundaries.
• Develop IaC-based security patterns using Terraform and Ansible.
• Support security controls aligned with NIST 800-53/800-171, FedRAMP, and FISMA.
• Troubleshoot complex security and network issues; participate in on-call as needed.
• Operate across architecture and implementation for secure, resilient infra.

Skills

Palo Alto Firewalls

Hybrid cloud security

Security automation

Terraform

Ansible

Python

Zero Trust

IAM / PKI

Public Trust clearance

Education

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Palo Alto Panorama

Prisma Cloud

Terraform

Ansible

Python

Bash

AWS

Job description

GDIT is seeking an experienced Senior Cybersecurity Engineer to design, implement, operate, and continuously improve security infrastructure across on-premises data centers and cloud environments supporting business and critical scientific workloads.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on engineer with strong expertise in cybersecurity, Palo Alto Networks firewalls, hybrid-cloud security architecture, and security automation. This role operates across both architecture and implementation - from defining security patterns and policies for configuring infrastructure, troubleshooting complex issues, and automating security operations.

This role is mostly remote, but must be within commuting distance to Rockville, MD for occasional onsite requirements.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

Network Security

• Design, deploy, manage, and optimize Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls, including security policies, NAT, routing, VPN, application controls, threat prevention, and URL filtering.
• Design secure connectivity, segmentation, and security boundaries between cloud and on-premises environments.
• Manage firewall high availability, upgrades, lifecycle, capacity, and policy optimization.

Security Architecture & Automation

• Modernize environment to leverage Infrastructure as Code using technologies such as Terraform and/or ansible.
• Support security controls and evidence mapping aligned with frameworks such as NIST 800-53/800-171, FedRAMP, and FISMA.
• Evaluate existing security architectures and identify improvements in security, resiliency, scalability, performance, and operational efficiency.
• Develop secure, resilient architecture spanning cloud and on-premises infrastructure using defense-in-depth and Zero Trust principles.

Operations & Incident Response

• Troubleshoot complex network, firewall, cloud and application-connectivity issues.
• Support security incidents, production outages, and root-cause analysis.
• Develop monitoring, logging, alerting, dashboards, runbooks, and engineering standards.
• Perform performance tuning, capacity planning, and security infrastructure lifecycle management.
• Participate in on-call or escalation support as required.

QUALIFICATIONS:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of hands-on cybersecurity engineering experience (or, 8+ years of experience in cloud security engineering in lieu of degree)
• Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, managing, and troubleshooting Palo Alto Networks Firewalls and hybrid network security architectures.
• Experience with Palo Alto Panorama, Prisma Cloud, and/or related Palo Alto technologies
• Experience securing hybrid on-premises/AWS environments.
• Experience with Terraform, Ansible, Python, Bash, APIs, or other infrastructure/security automation technologies.
• Strong understanding of networking and security fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, network segmentation, VPNs, TLS/PKI, encryption, IAM, Zero Trust, and threat detection/prevention.
• Experience troubleshooting complex security and network issues.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust.

Preferred

• Design and implement security controls for AWS multi-account and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Deploy and manage AWS security capabilities, including Network Firewall, WAF, Shield, Security Groups/NACLs, GuardDuty, Security Hub, CloudTrail, Config, IAM/Identity Center, KMS, VPC, and Transit Gateway controls
• Experience using LLMs, AI agents, or generative AI tools to automate engineering, security, or compliance workflows
• Experience implementing security and compliance controls aligned with NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, or similar frameworks.
• Palo Alto Networks (e.g., PCNSE) certifications, or equivalent practical experience.