Senior Cloud Security Engineer

GDIT is seeking an experienced Senior Cloud Security Engineer to design, implement, operate, and continuously improve security infrastructure across on-premises data centers and AWS environments supporting business and critical scientific workloads.

The ideal candidate is a hands-on engineer with strong expertise in AWS security, Palo Alto Networks firewalls, hybrid-cloud security architecture, Infrastructure as Code (IaC), and security automation. This role operates across both architecture and implementation - from defining security patterns and policies to configuring infrastructure, troubleshooting complex issues, and automating security operations.

Responsibilities:

Cloud & Network Security

• Design and implement security controls for AWS multi-account and hybrid-cloud environments.
• Deploy and manage AWS security capabilities, including Network Firewall, WAF, Shield, Security Groups/NACLs, GuardDuty, Security Hub, CloudTrail, Config, IAM/Identity Center, KMS, VPC, and Transit Gateway controls.
• Design secure connectivity, segmentation, and security boundaries between AWS and on-premises environments.
• Design, deploy, manage, and optimize Palo Alto Networks next-generation firewalls, including security policies, NAT, routing, VPN, application controls, threat prevention, and URL filtering.
• Manage firewall high availability, upgrades, lifecycle, capacity, and policy optimization.

Security Architecture & Automation

• Develop secure, resilient architectures spanning AWS and on-premises infrastructure using defense-in-depth and Zero Trust principles.
• Modernize environment to leverage Infrastructure as Code using technologies such as Terraform.
• Automate security operations, compliance reporting, configuration management, and policy enforcement using APIs, scripting, DevSecOps tooling, and AI-assisted engineering tools.
• Support security controls and evidence mapping aligned with frameworks such as NIST 800-53/800-171, FedRAMP, and FISMA.
• Evaluate existing security architectures and identify improvements in security, resiliency, scalability, performance, and operational efficiency.

Operations & Incident Response

• Troubleshoot complex cloud, network, firewall, and application-connectivity issues.
• Support security incidents, production outages, and root-cause analysis.
• Develop monitoring, logging, alerting, dashboards, runbooks, and engineering standards.
• Perform performance tuning, capacity planning, and security infrastructure lifecycle management.
• Participate in on-call or escalation support as required.

Qualifications:

Required:

• Bachelor's degree and 5+ years of hands-on cloud security engineering experience (or, 8+ years of experience in cloud security engineering in lieu of degree)
• Demonstrated experience designing, deploying, managing, and troubleshooting AWS security services and Palo Alto Networks firewalls.
• Experience securing hybrid on-premises/AWS environments.
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code, scripting and security automation.
• Strong understanding of networking and security fundamentals, including TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/HTTPS, network segmentation, VPNs, TLS/PKI, encryption, IAM, Zero Trust, and threat detection/prevention.
• Experience troubleshooting complex security and network issues.
• Must be able to obtain and maintain a Public Trust.

Preferred:

• Experience with Palo Alto Panorama, Prisma Cloud, and/or related Palo Alto technologies.
• Experience implementing centralized AWS security architectures in multi-account environments.
• Experience with Terraform, Ansible, Python, Bash, APIs, or other infrastructure/security automation technologies.
• Experience integrating security controls with SIEM/SOAR platforms.
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines and DevSecOps security practices.
• Experience with container/Kubernetes security and vulnerability management.
• Experience implementing security and compliance controls aligned with NIST, FISMA, FedRAMP, or similar frameworks.
• Experience using LLMs, AI agents, or generative AI tools to automate engineering, security, or compliance workflows.
• Palo Alto Networks (e.g., PCNSE) and/or AWS security/architecture certifications, or equivalent practical experience.
• Ability to independently own and resolve complex technical problems.

The likely salary range for this position is $124,093 - $149,500.