Network Security Specialist

Key Responsibilities and Deliverables

• Define and execute Candescent’s network security strategy aligned to business objectives, risk posture, and Zero Trust principles.
• Serve as the subject-matter expert for network security architecture, providing guidance to leadership, engineering, infrastructure, and product teams.
• Evaluate emerging technologies and regulatory requirements, ensuring Candescent’s network defenses remain current and aligned with leading practices.
• Architect, implement, and maintain network security technologies across cloud, data center, and branch environments—including NGFW, segmentation, VPN/ZTNA, DNS security, WAF, and DDoS protection.
• Oversee firewall policy lifecycle management, ensuring consistent, scalable, and auditable deployment of rules and objects.
• Lead secure connectivity initiatives supporting cloud adoption, SD-WAN evolution, Zero Trust access patterns, and encrypted traffic inspection capabilities.
• Partner with DevOps/Platform teams to integrate network security into CI/CD pipelines, automation frameworks, and infrastructure provisioning.
• Ensure resiliency through documented recovery procedures, redundancy planning, and continuous performance tuning.

Governance, Compliance & Assurance

• Maintain alignment with PCI, SOC 2, GLBA, and internal security standards.
• Develop and maintain documentation including network security standards, runbooks, diagrams, and technical reference architectures.
• Support internal/external audits and risk assessments, providing evidence and remediation plans as required.

Team Leadership & Cross-Functional Collaboration

• Lead, mentor, and develop a high-performing team of network security engineers.
• Oversee workload planning, technical decision-making, and escalations for incidents and complex engineering challenges.
• Foster strong partnerships with Infrastructure, Cloud Engineering, Security Operations, Application Security, and Product teams.
• Champion a culture of secure-by-design engineering and continuous improvement.

Qualifications And Experience

• 8+ years of experience in network security engineering, with at least 3 years in a lead or senior technical role.
• Hands-on expertise with enterprise-grade firewall platforms, secure network architecture, segmentation, and threat prevention services.
• Strong experience securing hybrid architectures (cloud, data center, branch) and implementing ZTNA or Zero Trust-aligned controls.
• Advanced understanding of TCP/IP, routing, VPN technologies, DNS security, and encrypted traffic inspection.
• Experience with infrastructure-as-code practices (Terraform, CloudFormation), network automation, and CI/CD integration.
• Strong analytical, communication, and incident leadership skills.

Preferred Distinctions

• Experience in financial services or other regulated industries.
• Certifications such as CISSP, CCSP, PCNSE, NSE7, AWS/Azure/GCP architectures, or equivalent.
• Familiarity with container networking, service mesh architectures, and secure API connectivity.