Firewall Operations Engineer | Secret Clearance

Conceras; Beltsville (MD); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

Conceras is seeking a Firewall Operations Engineer to support a DoS program with Tier 2 monitoring, configuration, and on‑site duties in Beltsville, MD. This hybrid role requires day shifts, roughly 3 days on-site.

You will manage Palo Alto, FortiGate, and other perimeter devices, apply rules, monitor ServiceNow incidents, update diagrams in Visio, and draft outage notifications while coordinating with multiple teams.

Qualifications

• BA degree or equivalent; 2–4 years experience preferred.
• In-depth experience with Palo Alto Firewalls and Panorama for troubleshooting and configuration.
• 3–5 years IT customer support (Tier I/II) experience.
• Experience with Firewall/DMZ infrastructure including Palo Alto (cloud), FortiGate, Azure Firewall, Cloudflare, Cisco ESA, A10, and proxy devices.
• CLI experience is preferred.
• Experience using NeuralStar and TCP/IP networking.

Responsibilities

• Provide Tier 2 support for perimeter devices (firewalls, proxies, and ESA).
• Monitor Service Now incidents and requests for Firewall Operations.
• Implement firewall rules and perform troubleshooting across devices.
• Escalate issues to Tier 3 and track life cycle.
• Perform routine maintenance: reboots, software upgrades, documentation.

Skills

Palo Alto FW

Firewall Monitoring

Network Troubleshooting

CLI Experience

NeuralStar

Visio

Panorama

TCP/IP Networking

Education

BA degree or equivalent

Tools

ServiceNow

Visio

NeuralStar

Panorama

Job description

Network Operations – Firewall Operations Engineer

Position Description

Description

This is an opening for a Firewall Engineer to support a Department of State (DoS) Bureau of Diplomatic Technology (DT) program. This program provides transparent, interconnected systems and security supporting the DoS in successfully carrying out its U.S. foreign policy mission. DT provides enterprise architecture design, engineering, operations and maintenance support services for servers, networks, firewalls, and enterprise applications across the Department.

This is a firewall engineer position, providing general Tier 2 monitoring, configuration, and support to multiple firewalls and perimeter security systems. The position directly supports DoS on-site to provide perimeter security protection to over 80,000 customers globally.

This is a hybrid position based out of Beltsville, MD with ~3 days on-site. Shift is Day’s (7:00am-3:30pm), Tuesday-Saturday after training. During the ~6-8-week training period, it will be 5 days on-site Mon-Fri (7:00am-3:30pm).

Your responsibilities will include:

• Provides Tier 2 support in the monitoring, management, and troubleshooting of perimeter devices to include firewalls, proxies, and mail transport agents.
• Monitor Service Now application for Firewall Operations (FWOPS) incident and service requests.
• Implements firewall rules and policies, perform troubleshooting of firewalls (Palo Alto, Cloud Palo Alto, and FortiGate), CISCO Email Security Appliance (ESA), A10 (load balancer), Proxy platforms, URL filtering across platforms, and analyzing network traffic captures.
• Escalates issues as required to Tier 3 staff and monitors issues throughout a problem’s life cycle.
• Performs recurring maintenance activities such as device reboots and software upgrades on all devices underneath the Firewall Operations Team.
• Records and reports on firewall operations, utilization, and maintenance.
• Collaborate across Bureaus and Agencies to implement and repair network changes as they relate to perimeter security devices.
• Support Diplomatic Security Computer Incident Response Team (CIRT) by implementing block requests for IP’s, Websites, and Email addresses.
• Update architecture diagrams using Visio.
• Monitor and perform health checks on multiple perimeter security devices.
• Draft, coordinate and publish outage notifications as required.
• Update shift logs and provide reports to leadership as needed.
• Maintain standard operating procedures (SOP), work instructions, and other working documents.
• Attend calls requiring a FWOPS team to attend, to include troubleshooting calls.

Required Education & Experience:

• BA degree and 2-4 years of experience, may accept additional experience in lieu of degree.
• In Depth experience using Palo Alto Firewalls and Panorama monitoring tools to troubleshoot and configure a Firewall infrastructure. Strong understanding of networking, proxy, and packet filtering technologies.
• Minimum 3-5 years of IT Customer Support experience (Tier I and/or Tier II).
• First‑hand experience with supporting the monitoring and configuration of Firewall/DMZ infrastructure including Network and Application Firewall Packet Filtering technologies (Palo Alto, Palo Alto virtual FW (cloud), FortiGate, Azure Firewall, Cloudflare, Cisco Email Security Appliances (ESA), A10 (Load Balancer), and proxy devices.
• CLI experience preferred.
• Experienced in utilizing network monitoring tools such as NeuralStar.
• Experienced with TCP/IP network implementation and troubleshooting.

Required Clearance

• US Citizenship.
• An Interim Secret clearance is required to start work and requires eligibility to obtain a Top-Secret clearance.