Senior Security Engineer

Cypress Consulting; Washington (District of Columbia); Hybrid; USD 145,000 - 158,000; Part time

Job summary

Cypress Consulting in Washington, DC is seeking a part-time firewall engineer to lead design and validation of secure enterprise networks. You will implement high-availability controls and write robust firewall policies in collaboration with network engineers.

Responsibilities include building rule matrices, configuring Cisco Secure Firewall and FMC, and documenting changes with pilot tests and controlled rollouts. A Secret clearance is required for on-site work.

Qualifications

• Active Secret clearance and U.S. person status are required.
• Hands-on experience with Cisco Secure Firewall and FMC.
• Ability to plan and validate security changes including failover and rollback.

Responsibilities

• Assess firewall architecture, security zones, traffic flows, policies, logging and high-availability behavior.
• Co-design secure network integration with the network lead for routing, inspection and logging.
• Develop a firewall rule matrix covering sources, destinations, protocols and ports.
• Engineer and administer Cisco Secure Firewall and FMC, including HA configuration.
• Document changes and support pilot testing, staged cutovers and rollback.
• Validate policy and connectivity, investigate post-change issues and document mitigations.
• Maintain configuration records, design docs and knowledge-transfer materials.

Skills

Firewall policy development

Security zones & segmentation

Traffic analysis

Failover planning

Compliance & risk mitigation

Tools

Cisco Secure Firewall

Firepower Management Center (FMC)

High-availability configurations

Job description

Onsite, Washington, DC Part-time · $110/hour Project: 200 hours Clearance: Secret

Role overview

Lead firewall engineering and validation for secure enterprise networks, designing supportable policies and high-availability controls in collaboration with network engineers.

Responsibilities

• Assess firewall architecture, security zones, traffic flows, policies, logging, high-availability behavior, and dependencies.
• Co-design secure network integration with the network lead, accounting for routing, inspection, multicast and unicast traffic, logging, validation, and rollback.
• Develop a firewall rule matrix covering sources, destinations, protocols, ports, applications, inspection, logging, and approvals.
• Engineer and administer Cisco Secure Firewall and Firepower Management Center (FMC), including high-availability configuration.
• Document approved changes and support pilot testing, staged cutovers, failover testing, and controlled rollback.
• Validate security policy and application connectivity, investigate post-change issues, and document residual risks and mitigations.
• Maintain configuration records, design documentation, test evidence, operational guidance, and knowledge-transfer materials.

Required qualifications

• Hands-on experience with Cisco Secure Firewall, FMC, high-availability operations, and firewall policy development.
• Experience designing security zones and segmentation and translating approved traffic requirements into firewall rules.
• Ability to plan and validate security changes, including failover, logging, rollback, and end-to-end application connectivity.
• U.S. person status, active Secret clearance, and ability to meet secure-facility access requirements.

Preferred qualifications

• CCIE Security, CompTIA Security+, or CISSP certification.
• Experience with TACLANEs and inline network encryption.

Work conditions

• Work takes place in a closed, secure network environment.