# Principal Network Engineer **Company**: Leidos **Location**: Odenton, MD **Experience**: senior **Job type**: full-time **Category**: Engineering **Industry**: Technology **Apply**: https://leidos.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/job/Odenton-MD/Principal-Network-Access-Control--NAC--Engineer_R-00194241?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply **Canonical**: https://yubhub.co/jobs/job_fbe8103b-a6e ## Description Leidos is seeking a Principal Network Engineer specializing in enterprise wireless infrastructure to design, implement, and modernize a large-scale, geographically distributed wireless network environment. The successful candidate will serve as a senior technical engineer responsible for migrating Aruba wireless controllers to a centralized cloud-hosted environment, implementing Aruba Central, improving wireless network resiliency, and standardizing wireless security and access-control capabilities. **Primary Responsibilities** **Wireless Architecture and Controller Migration** - Design, engineer, and implement the migration of existing Aruba wireless controllers to a centralized cloud-hosted infrastructure. - Deploy and configure Aruba Central for centralized wireless management, configuration standardization, monitoring, and operational visibility. - Develop controller migration strategies, implementation procedures, validation plans, and rollback processes. - Standardize NTP configurations across wireless controllers, access points, and supporting network infrastructure. - Evaluate and establish wireless deployment standards, including bridge versus tunnel mode and campus versus remote architectures. - Develop standardized configurations and deployment playbooks for geographically distributed sites. - Coordinate cloud infrastructure integration, including connectivity, routing, security requirements, and availability. **Wireless High Availability and Network Resiliency** - Design and implement Layer 2 and Layer 3 redundancy to improve wireless availability and service continuity. - Configure and validate controller failover, preemption, and recovery to preferred controllers following service restoration. - Implement and troubleshoot VRRP, virtual IP addressing, and controller high-availability configurations. - Evaluate and optimize DHCP, GRE tunnels, routing, and wireless traffic forwarding across centralized and distributed environments. - Develop and execute failover and recovery testing to validate wireless resiliency. - Troubleshoot complex controller, routing, and wireless connectivity issues. **Wireless Security and Network Access Control** - Design and implement enterprise wireless security standards, including WPA3, Wireless Intrusion Detection Systems (WIDS), and identity-based access controls. - Configure wireless security policies through Aruba Central and validate deployment to controllers and access points. - Evaluate hardware compatibility and develop migration strategies for WPA3 adoption, including transition-mode considerations. - Standardize wireless configurations, including 5 GHz operation, authentication, and security settings. - Integrate wireless infrastructure with Cisco ISE, Aruba ClearPass, and enterprise identity services. - Configure and troubleshoot 802.1X, RADIUS, EAP-TLS, certificate-based authentication, and wireless access policies. - Coordinate identity-based policy integration with Microsoft Entra ID, VPN infrastructure, and firewall enforcement. **Monitoring and Enterprise Integration** - Integrate Aruba Central with ScienceLogic SL1 to support wireless monitoring, alerting, device discovery, and performance visibility. - Coordinate with monitoring engineers to establish required APIs, monitoring policies, and operational dashboards. - Validate controller status, access point availability, authentication health, and wireless performance monitoring. - Support integration with enterprise DNS, DHCP, NTP, routing, and security infrastructure. - Identify opportunities to automate wireless configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting. **Guest Wireless and Security Integration** - Develop secure guest wireless architecture, including network segmentation and Internet connectivity options. - Evaluate guest authentication methods, including temporary credentials, PPSK, and IPSK. - Support guest wireless security requirements, implementation planning, and authorization documentation. - Coordinate technical security assessments, configuration validation, and required infrastructure approvals. **Technical Leadership and Implementation** - Serve as a senior technical subject matter expert for Aruba wireless infrastructure and centralized wireless management. - Provide technical direction, mentoring, and engineering guidance to network engineering personnel. - Lead technical design reviews, implementation planning, integration testing, and troubleshooting activities. - Identify technical risks, dependencies, and operational impacts associated with wireless modernization. - Establish repeatable engineering standards and implementation procedures for deployment teams. - Support production migration, validation, and transition to operations. **Documentation Responsibilities** - Develop and maintain engineering and operational documentation, including: - Wireless architecture and cloud integration diagrams. - Aruba Central and controller configuration standards. - Controller migration and implementation procedures. - Layer 2/Layer 3 redundancy, VRRP, and failover designs. - Wireless security and WPA3 implementation standards. - NAC integration and authentication policy documentation. - Network connectivity, routing, and data-flow diagrams. - ScienceLogic SL1 monitoring integration requirements. - Guest wireless architecture and security documentation. - Test plans, validation procedures, and rollback documentation. - Standard operating procedures and migration playbooks. - As-built and operations transition documentation. **Required Qualifications** - Bachelor's degree with 12+ years of relevant experience, or Master's degree with 10+ years of relevant experience. - Current IAT Level II or higher certification, such as Security+ or CISSP. - Significant hands-on experience engineering, implementing, and supporting enterprise Aruba wireless infrastructure, including controllers, access points, and centralized management platforms. - Experience with Aruba Central, including configuration management, controller integration, and enterprise wireless deployments. - Strong knowledge of enterprise wireless networking, including 802.11 standards, RF fundamentals, WLAN architecture, VLANs, routing, and switching. - Experience implementing and troubleshooting wireless controller redundancy, high availability, failover, and network resiliency. - Experience with wireless security and authentication, including WPA2/WPA3, 802.1X, RADIUS, and enterprise NAC platforms. - Experience integrating wireless infrastructure with enterprise networking services, including DNS, DHCP, NTP, routing, and monitoring platforms. - Experience developing and executing engineering designs, implementation plans, migration procedures, test plans, and production deployments. - Strong troubleshooting and analytical skills with the ability to resolve complex wireless connectivity, authentication, and network performance issues. - Strong written and verbal communication skills, including experience providing technical guidance and developing engineering documentation. **Clearance Requirements** - U.S. citizenship required. - Active Secret clearance required. - Must meet applicable cybersecurity workforce qualification requirements for the assigned position. ## Skills ### Required - Aruba wireless infrastructure - Enterprise networking - Wireless security - High availability - Network access control - Aruba Central - ScienceLogic SL1 - Cisco ISE - Aruba ClearPass - Microsoft Entra ID - WPA3 - 802.1X - RADIUS - EAP-TLS - VRRP - GRE tunnels - DHCP - Routing - Switching - Wireless intrusion detection systems - Identity-based access controls ### Nice to have - Aruba Certified Mobility Professional (ACMP) - Aruba Certified Design Professional (ACDP) - Aruba Certified Mobility Expert (ACMX) - Cisco CCNP Enterprise - Python - REST APIs - Ansible - Network automation technologies --- Source: [Apply at leidos.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com](https://leidos.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/External/job/Odenton-MD/Principal-Network-Access-Control--NAC--Engineer_R-00194241?utm_source=yubhub.co&utm_medium=jobs_feed&utm_campaign=apply)