Lead Sr. Network Operations Engineer (Network Security - Palo Alto/Zscaler) Engineer

About the role

The Lead Senior Network Operations Center (NOC) Engineer (Tier 3) serves as the highest technical escalation point within the global NOC organization. This role delivers advanced troubleshooting expertise, architecture-level insight, and deep subject matter knowledge across complex, multi-vendor network environments. The Tier 3 Engineer leads root-cause analysis efforts, oversees major incident response, influences network design standards, and partners closely with engineering teams to drive network stability, scalability, and operational excellence.

Responsibilities

• Acts as the final escalation point for all high-severity network incidents, performing advanced packet analysis, protocol decoding, and cross-platform correlation.
• Leads deep-dive root cause analysis (RCA), producing engineering-quality post-incident reports and recommending long-term corrective and preventive actions.
• Directs network recovery efforts during major outages involving routing instability, security incidents, hardware failures, or cloud connectivity disruptions.
• Applies strong knowledge of security automation, API-driven provisioning, and lifecycle management within large-scale environments, including experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) pipelines.
• Develops and maintains automation scripts to support configuration validation, monitoring, and incident response workflows.
• Evaluates, integrates, and optimizes new operational tools and observability platforms to enhance network visibility and reliability.
• Mentors junior and mid-level NOC engineers through technical coaching, lab guidance, and development of training materials.
• Engages directly with vendors on escalated TAC cases, hardware issues, and architectural reviews.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.
• 8+ years of enterprise network operations or engineering experience supporting large-scale, mission-critical environments.
• Expert-level knowledge of network security architecture, with deep expertise in Palo Alto and Zscaler platforms.
• Extensive hands-on experience with Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Palo Alto, Aruba, and F5 technologies.
• Proven ability to lead major incidents under pressure with clear communication and strong technical leadership.
• PREFERRED Certifications: CCNP, CCIE, JNCIP/JNCIE, PCNSE, F5 Certified Admin or Engineer, AWS Advanced Networking

Special Requirements

• Participation in a 24×7 Tier 3 on-call escalation rotation.
• Availability to support after-hours change execution and major incident coverage as needed.