Security Engineer – Edge & Cloud Security (Akamai / AWS)

Aquent (United States); Van Buren Charter Township (MI); Remote; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Aquent seeks a Senior Security Engineer specializing in Akamai Edge Security to lead defense during a major cloud migration to AWS. You will own Akamai App & API Protector (WAF) and BMP configurations across hybrid environments, acting as the subject matter expert during high-severity incidents.

Role emphasizes edge security architecture, incident response, and policy lifecycle management, with remote work from a US-based location.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree required or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years configuring and troubleshooting Akamai WAF and Bot Manager Premier.
• Strong network analysis skills and SIEM tooling experience.
• Excellent written and verbal communication for incidents.

Responsibilities

• Edge Security Architecture: design, tune, and maintain Akamai WAF rules and bot detection.
• Cloud Migration Enablement: ensure policy parity during AWS migration and secure endpoints.
• Threat Mitigation & Incident Response: Tier-3 escalation for Layer 7 attacks and RCA.
• Policy Lifecycle Management: manage rule updates and staged deployments.
• Observability & Analytics: integrate Akamai logs with SIEM dashboards and reports.
• Documentation & Enablement: maintain runbooks and diagrams for teams.

Skills

Akamai Edge Security

Incident Response

AppSec / OWASP

Cloud & Hybrid Networking

Observability & Reporting

Education

Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or Cybersecurity

Tools

Wireshark

cURL

Fiddler

Postman

Akamai CLI

Job description

Security Engineer – Edge & Cloud Security (Akamai / AWS)

Location: Remote (US-based)

Employment Type: Full-time / Contract

About the Role

We are seeking an experienced Senior Security Engineer specializing in Akamai Edge Security to lead the defense of our application layer during a major enterprise cloud migration to AWS.

In this role, you will own the configuration, fine-tuning, and operational health of Akamai App & API Protector (WAF) and Bot Manager Premier (BMP). You will act as the frontline subject matter expert during high-severity security incidents and work directly with cloud architects, engineering teams, and DevOps to ensure zero disruption to legitimate traffic while maintaining a resilient security posture across hybrid and cloud environments.

Core Must-Haves

• 5+ Years of Hands-On Akamai Edge Security: Deep expertise deploying, managing, and tuning Akamai Web Application Firewall (Kona / App & API Protector) and Bot Manager Premier (BMP) across high-traffic, multi-tenant enterprise architectures.
• Incident Response & Bot Tuning: Proven track record tuning behavioral bot detections, mitigating Layer 7 DDoS and credential stuffing attacks, and eliminating false positives without degrading user experience.
• AppSec Fundamentals: Deep understanding of OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, API security risks, HTTP/S protocol behaviors, and threat mitigation at the edge.
• Cloud & Hybrid Networking: Working knowledge of AWS networking and application architectures (e.g., ALBs, CloudFront, Route 53, VPCs) and how edge proxies integrate into hybrid cloud routing.

Key Responsibilities

• Edge Security Architecture: Design, optimize, and maintain Akamai WAF rulesets, rate-limiting policies, and custom bot detection conditions aligned with application risk profiles.
• Cloud Migration Enablement: Partner with AWS migration teams to design routing cutovers, ensure policy parity between on-prem and cloud workloads, and safeguard endpoints throughout transitional states.
• Threat Mitigation & Incident Response: Serve as the Tier-3 escalation point for active Layer 7 attacks, automated scraping, credential stuffing, and zero-day exploit attempts; conduct rapid triage and post-incident root cause analyses (RCA).
• Policy Lifecycle Management: Establish baseline evaluation methodologies for new rule updates, staging deployments, and proactive false-positive suppression.
• Observability & Analytics: Integrate Akamai log streams (DataStream, SIEM integration) with central logging solutions (e.g., Splunk, Datadog) to build actionable threat dashboards and executive reporting.
• Documentation & Enablement: Maintain precise architectural diagrams, runbooks, and policy documentation to empower operational handoffs and engineering teams.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or equivalent practical experience.
• 5+ years directly configuring and troubleshooting Akamai WAF and Bot Manager Premier.
• Strong proficiency in network analysis tools (Wireshark, cURL, Fiddler, Postman) and browser inspection for payload debugging.
• Experience with enterprise log analysis and SIEM tooling (e.g., Splunk, Elastic, Sentinel).
• Excellent verbal and written technical communication skills, with comfort advising both software engineers and senior leadership during active incidents.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience managing edge security via Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Akamai CLI / APIs).
• Prior security engineering experience within financial services, e-commerce, or regulated enterprise environments.
• Active security or cloud certifications, such as Akamai Certified Specialist, AWS Certified Security – Specialty, CCSP, or GIAC (GWAPT, GCIH).