Principal Cybersecurity Engineer – Firewall Policy Implementation (Artificial Intelligence (AI) Experienced)

Role Summary

We are looking for a Principal Cybersecurity Engineer (Firewall Policy Implementation) with demonstrated AI experience to join our high‑performing cybersecurity team. This is a hands‑on, deeply technical engineering role focused on firewall policy operations and management at a large‑scale enterprise level. The position does not involve people management and is intended for senior candidates with extensive firewall policy experience. The role requires onsite presence five days per week, primarily in the Charlotte, NC hub, though other hubs (Dallas, TX; Bothell, WA; Middletown, NJ; Alpharetta, GA) may be considered for exceptionally strong candidates.

Key Responsibilities

• Optimize and implement firewall rules to mitigate risk, harden perimeter defenses, and protect systems, critical infrastructure, and customer data.
• Own day‑to‑day firewall policy operations, including tuning, cleanup, insertions, removals, and hardware decommissions.
• Safely apply approved firewall policy changes within defined change processes, performing validation and post‑change verification.
• Collaborate with architecture, engineering, and operations teams to troubleshoot connectivity and security policy outages, handling identification, triage, analysis, containment, recovery, and root‑cause determination.
• Identify and drive automation and AI opportunities using AT&T‑owned instances of Copilot, ChatGPT, GitHub, Gemini, Claude, etc., to reduce manual effort and improve accuracy.
• Perform risk assessments and analyze complex security issues to develop mitigation strategies and reduce attack‑surface exposure.
• Provide technical support and expertise for security‑related rollouts, working closely with IT, network, and business units.
• Complete structured onboarding, including mentoring, coaching sessions, proficiency checks, and shadowing.
• Earn authorization to independently execute firewall policy changes and participate in an on‑call rotation coordinated with AT&T’s Global Technology Operations Center (GTOC).
• Once fully integrated, execute firewall policy updates, removals, monitoring/soak, and incident troubleshooting at enterprise scale, and mature AI‑assisted operations to improve throughput, reduce risk, and strengthen defenses.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience operating and maintaining firewall policies (rule sets) in production environments.
• Extensive hands‑on experience managing enterprise firewall policy at scale.
• Strong operational discipline: change‑control validation, documented processes, rollback planning, and post‑change verification.
• Proven ability to troubleshoot network/security and firewall policy issues under time pressure.
• Experience working in large‑scale, complex environments with multiple stakeholders.

Preferred Qualifications

• CISSP or equivalent cybersecurity certification (CISM, CISA, CRISC, etc.).
• Palo Alto certifications such as PCNSE / PCNSA or equivalent demonstrated experience.
• Experience with Palo Alto CLI policy automation, orchestration, “policy as code,” and Python policy scripting.
• Familiarity with Visual Studio Code, Jupyter Notebook, and agentic coding tools (GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, OpenAI Codex/ChatGPT).
• 8+ years of hands‑on cybersecurity/network security engineering experience, including enterprise operations.
• 5+ years of Palo Alto Networks (PAN‑OS) firewall platform and policy management in production.
• Exposure to AI/ML‑enabled operations, AIOps, or using AI tooling for incident reduction and efficiency.
• Experience with metrics‑driven operations (usage, hit counts, error rates, change success, MTTR, policy hygiene).
• Knowledge of AlgoSec, URL Filtering, WildFire, Threat Prevention, DNS Security, and security profile tuning.
• Experience with SSL decryption strategy/operations, including break/fix and exception handling.
• Familiarity with integrating firewall operations with ITSM and CI/CD tooling (e.g., ServiceNow workflows, change gates, automated validation).
• Understanding of network fundamentals at scale: BGP/OSPF basics, VRFs, VLANs, IPsec concepts, DNS, and load‑balancing impacts on traffic paths.

Success Looks Like

• Safe, accurate, and timely delivery of firewall changes per SLA requirements with minimal rework.
• Strong troubleshooting outcomes and reduced incident recurrence.
• Improved operational efficiency through automation and AI‑assisted workflows.
• Clear documentation and process contributions that scale across the team.
• Demonstrated expertise with Palo Alto firewall policy lifecycle: rule creation/updates, cleanup/removals, recertification, and audit‑ready documentation.
• Proficiency with App‑ID, User‑ID, Content‑ID, zones, security policies, NAT policies, and service objects.
• Hands‑on experience troubleshooting security/NAT rule matching, routing impacts, decryption/policy interactions, and application behavior vs. port‑based assumptions.
• Operational rigor with enterprise change processes: risk assessment, implementation plans, validation/testing, rollback planning, and post‑change verification.
• Experience using centralized management such as Panorama (templates, device groups, commits, commit validation, log collection basics).
• Ability to analyze logs and traffic flows (traffic, threat, URL logs, packet captures) to validate policy outcomes.
• Effective partnership with network, application, and operations teams to drive outcomes under time constraints.
• Strong documentation skills and ability to author repeatable processes (playbooks & runbooks).

Job Contribution

An expert in their field who applies broad business knowledge and strategic insight surrounding emerging trends and technologies to solve complex problems and drive organizational results. Leads critical, high‑impact projects, designs and implements innovative strategies, works with minimal oversight, consults senior leadership, influences executive decisions, and mentors others on challenging issues.

Education & Experience

• Bachelor’s degree (BS/BA) in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related field (desired).
• 7+ years of related experience.
• Relevant certifications required in some areas (e.g., CISSP, Palo Alto certifications).

Pay

Principal Cybersecurity Engineer salary range: $155,400 – $261,100 USD annually. Individual starting salary depends on geography, experience, expertise, and education/training.

Benefits

• Medical, dental, and vision coverage
• 401(k) plan
• Tuition reimbursement program
• Paid time off and holidays (minimum 23 vacation days + 9 company holidays)
• Paid parental leave
• Paid caregiver leave
• Additional sick leave (unprotected)
• Adoption reimbursement
• Short‑term and long‑term disability benefits
• Life and accidental death insurance
• Supplemental benefit programs (critical illness, accident, hospital indemnity, group legal)
• Employee assistance programs (EAP)
• Extensive employee wellness programs
• Employee discounts up to 50 % on eligible AT&T mobility plans, accessories, internet (including fiber where available), and phone services

Schedule

Full‑time, 40 hours per week, regular time type. On‑site work required 5 days per week at the designated hub location.

Location

Primary hub: Charlotte, NC (Ibm Dr – 8505). Consideration may be given to other hubs: Alpharetta, GA; Bothell, WA; Dallas, TX; Middletown, NJ.