Cybersecurity Sr Engineer

General Dynamics IT; Rockville (MD); Remote; USD 164,000 - 178,000; Full time

Job summary

General Dynamics IT is seeking a Senior Cybersecurity Engineer to design, implement, operate, and continuously improve security infrastructure across on-premises data centers and cloud environments. The ideal candidate is hands-on with Palo Alto firewalls, hybrid-cloud security architecture, and security automation, working across architecture and implementation.

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

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of hands-on cybersecurity engineering experience or 8+ years of cloud security engineering in lieu of degree.
• 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 automation technologies.
• Strong networking and security fundamentals including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, segmentation, VPNs, TLS/PKI, IAM, Zero Trust, and threat detection.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust.

Responsibilities

• 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.
• Modernize environment using Infrastructure as Code with Terraform and Ansible.
• Support security controls and evidence mapping aligned with 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 architecture spanning cloud and on-premises with defense-in-depth and Zero Trust.
• Troubleshoot complex network, firewall, cloud and application-connectivity issues.
• Support security incidents, outages, and root-cause analysis.
• Develop monitoring, logging, alerting, dashboards, runbooks, and engineering standards.
• Participate in on-call or escalation support as required.

Skills

Firewalls

Network Security

Security Architecture Design

Security Automation

Security Technologies

Education

Bachelor's degree

Job description

Job Details

Type of Requisition: Regular

Clearance Level Must Currently Possess: None

Clearance Level Must Be Able to Obtain: None

Public Trust/Other Required: NACI (T1)

Job Family: Cyber and IT Risk Management

Job Qualifications: Skills: Firewalls, Network Security, Security Architecture Design, Security Automation, Security Technologies Certifications: None Experience: 5 + years of related experience US Citizenship Required: No

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.

Salary

The likely salary range for this position is $164,382 - $178,250. This is not, however, a guarantee of compensation or salary. Rather, salary will be set based on experience, geographic location and possibly contractual requirements and could fall outside of this range.

Scheduled Weekly Hours

40

Travel Required

Less than 10%

Telecommuting Options

Remote

Work Location

USA MD Rockville

Total Rewards at GDIT

Our benefits package for all US-based employees includes a variety of medical plan options, some with Health Savings Accounts, dental plan options, a vision plan, and a 401(k) plan offering the ability to contribute both pre and post-tax dollars up to the IRS annual limits and receive a company match. To encourage work/life balance, GDIT offers employees ful