Firewall Engineering Architect

Leidos LLC; Huntsville (AL); On-site; USD 92,000 - 167,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

Health and Wellness programs

Income Protection

Paid Leave and Retirement

Job summary

Leidos is seeking an experienced Firewall Engineering Architect to provide senior-level technical leadership for NASA’s enterprise security and network modernization initiatives in Huntsville, AL. You will guide teams on firewall design, policy development, and migration planning, ensuring alignment with zero-trust and risk management principles.

The role requires deep expertise in next‑generation firewall platforms and strong collaboration with NASA leadership, program management, and

Qualifications

• 8–12 years in enterprise network security or firewall engineering.
• 8–10 years in senior engineering, architectural, or leadership roles.
• Proven experience designing and managing large-scale firewall and perimeter security infrastructures.
• Deep expertise with next-generation firewall platforms and enterprise-grade security services.
• Strong communication, leadership, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Firewall Engineering Architecture Team, providing technical direction for enterprise firewall, IDS/IPS, and security control design and integration.
• Define NASA’s enterprise firewall architecture strategy, ensuring alignment with zero-trust, mission-security, and risk management requirements.
• Serve as the senior technical authority and escalation point for complex firewall, perimeter security, and cross-domain protection issues.
• Develop modernization roadmaps and standards for firewall performance, resiliency, rule/policy lifecycle management, and automation.
• Oversee large-scale firewall migrations, data center and cloud integrations, and enterprise segmentation initiatives.
• Deliver data-driven technical briefings and executive-level recommendations to NASA and Leidos senior management.

Skills

Firewall engineering

Architectural leadership

Zero-trust

Stakeholder comms

Team mentorship

Education

Bachelor's in Engineering

Master's preferred

Tools

Palo Alto

Fortinet

Cisco

Juniper

Job description

Leidos Firewall Engineering Architect

Leidos is seeking an experienced Firewall Engineering Architect to provide senior-level technical leadership, architectural oversight, and strategic direction for NASA’s enterprise security and network modernization initiatives. This role is central to designing, evolving, and optimizing the firewall, security, and perimeter protection services that safeguard NASA’s Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), Mission Network, and cloud-connected environments. The ideal candidate will serve as the lead architect for NASA’s Firewall Engineering domain, guiding a highly skilled team responsible for advanced security design, migration planning, policy development, and the integration of next-generation firewall technologies across NASA’s enterprise. This position requires deep technical expertise in firewall and network security engineering, strong leadership capabilities, and the ability to collaborate effectively with NASA senior leadership, program management, cybersecurity leads, and cross-functional engineering teams.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the Firewall Engineering Architecture Team, providing technical direction for enterprise firewall, IDS/IPS, and security control design and integration.
• Define NASA’s enterprise firewall architecture strategy, ensuring alignment with zero-trust, mission-security, and risk management requirements.
• Serve as the senior technical authority and escalation point for complex firewall, perimeter security, and cross-domain protection issues.
• Develop modernization roadmaps and standards for firewall performance, resiliency, rule/policy lifecycle management, and automation.
• Oversee large-scale firewall migrations, data center and cloud integrations, and enterprise segmentation initiatives.
• Partner with NASA and Leidos leadership to support proposals, technical volumes, and Basis of Estimates (BOEs) related to security architecture efforts.
• Drive innovation in areas such as firewall automation, orchestration, SDN-based security, cloud-native firewalls, and threat visibility enhancements.
• Establish governance processes for rule validation, configuration baselines, policy stewardship, and continuous monitoring.
• Mentor engineers, establish training pipelines, and promote technical rigor and standardization across the Firewall Engineering discipline.
• Deliver data-driven technical briefings and executive-level recommendations to NASA and Leidos senior management.

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related field (Master’s preferred).
• 8–12 years of experience in enterprise network security or firewall engineering, with 8–10 years serving in senior engineering, architectural, or leadership roles.
• Proven experience designing and managing large-scale, mission-critical firewall and perimeter security infrastructures.
• Deep expertise with next-generation firewall platforms (e.g., Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco, Juniper) and enterprise-grade security services.
• Strong understanding of network architecture, routing/switching, zero-trust principles, intrusion detection/prevention, and segmentation strategies.
• Demonstrated ability to lead multidisciplinary engineering teams in complex, high-visibility operational environments.
• Experience supporting large IT infrastructure programs, including proposal development and BOE creation.
• Excellent communication, leadership, and stakeholder engagement skills.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience supporting government, aerospace, or NASA environments.
• Industry certifications such as CISSP, CCNP Security, JNCIS/JNCIP Security, PCNSE, or equivalent.
• Familiarity with cloud security architecture, cloud-native firewalls, and SDN-based security models.
• Experience leading geographically distributed engineering or security teams.

Clearance requirements: U.S. Citizenship is required. Must have the ability to obtain and maintain a security clearance ranging from a Public Trust, at minimum, up to a Top-Secret clearance, as required.

Pay Range $92,300.00 - $166,850.00

Pay and Benefits

Pay and benefits are fundamental to any career decision. That's why we craft compensation packages that reflect the importance of the work we do for our customers.

• Competitive compensation
• Health and Wellness programs
• Income Protection
• Paid Leave and Retirement

Securing Your Data

Leidos will never ask you to provide payment-related information at any part of the employment application process. And Leidos will communicate with you only through emails that are sent from a Leidos.com email address. If you receive an email purporting to be from Leidos that asks for payment-related information or any other personal information, please report the email to [e-mail].

Commitment and Diversity

All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to sex, race, ethnicity, age, national origin, citizenship, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, pregnancy, family structure, marital status, ancestry, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, veteran or military status, or any other basis prohibited by law.

Leidos will also consider for employment qualified applicants with criminal histories consistent with relevant laws.

About Leidos

#HotJobs If you're looking for comfort, keep scrolling. At Leidos, we outthink, outbuild, and outpace the status quo — because the mission demands it. We're not hiring followers. We're recruiting the ones who disrupt, provoke, and refuse to fail. Step 10 is ancient history. We're already at step 30 — and moving faster than anyone else dares.