Azure Firewall/Akamai WAF Engineer

Company: Softworld Inc
Location: Wellesley
Posted on: February 19, 2025

Job Description:

Job Title: Azure Firewall/Akamai WAF Engineer

Skills, Experience, Qualifications, If you have the right match for this opportunity, then make sure to apply today.

Location: REMOTE but prefer VA/MD area

Duration: 6-12 months contract to hire.



** Must be US citizen and obtain a public trust clearance**

Onsite Requirements:

Akamai Web Application Firewall
Microsoft Azure
Network Security

Job Description:



Seize your opportunity to make a personal impact as an Azure Firewall and Akamai Web Application Firewall (WAF) Engineer supporting our HHS HRSA customer.
Engineer, test, and implement firewall and WAF solutions using a combination of Azure and Akamai technologies.
Work with a cross-functional team of engineers and subject matter experts designing solutions and integrating firewalls, WAF, NAT, Azure Load Balancers, TIC 3.0 cloud infrastructure with the Cloud-based SASE Load Balancers.
Help the customer achieve their goal of reducing their reliance on on-premises Citrix NetScaler.
Ensure customer networked traffic is safe and secure from threats.

What You'll Need to Succeed:


Bachelor's degree in a related STEM field.
5+ years of related experience with Azure Firewalls and WAF Technologies (preferably Akamai).
3+ years of experience in large-scale enterprise Azure Organization.
Strong understanding of firewalls (stateless, stateful, next-gen firewalls).
Ability to configure firewall (hardware and software-based), including rules, policies, and access control lists.
Defining security policies for inbound and outbound traffic.
Filtering traffic based upon IP, port, protocol, and advanced filtering using application-level characteristics.
Hands-On experience in setting up, configuring, and maintaining WAF solutions such as Azure Application Gateway, Cloudflare, Akamai WAF, or Mod Security.
Understanding of OWASP top 10 threats, such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and cross-site forgery (CSRF), and how to set up WAFs to protect against those threats.
Custom rule creation for WAF rules to mitigate specific application vulnerabilities.
Proficient in inspecting HTTP/HTTPS traffic, detecting anomalies, and tuning WAFs to reduce false positives.
Strong understanding of networking protocols (IP, IPv6, TCP, UDP, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, SSL/TLS) and how they are used in firewalls and WAFs to secure traffic.
Familiarity with VPNs and Secure Tunnels, IPSec, SSL, and other tunneling protocols.
Knowledgeable in load-balancing and ensuring firewall and WAF redundancy for high-availability (HA). Customers currently use Citrix NetScaler.
Ability to understand threat intelligence, the latest threat landscapes, attack vectors, and how to secure systems accordingly.
Ability to respond to security incidents involving firewall breaches or WAF vulnerabilities, including post-event analysis and mitigation.
Familiar with securing cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP) using cloud-native firewalls and WAF solutions.
Familiar with cloud-native WAFs and Firewalls, such as Azure Firewall, WAF, Azure Network Security Groups (NSG), Palo Alto Cloud NGFW for Azure, and Azure Application Gateway.
Proficient in scripting languages such as Python, Bash, PowerShell to automate repetitive tasks such as rules updating and/or log parsing.
Familiar with automation tools like Ansible, Terraform, or Puppet for automating firewall and WAF deployments and management.
Ability to parse and analyze firewall and WAF logs to detect security incidents and optimize security posture.
Experience with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) tools (such as Splunk) for aggregating and analyzing logs from firewalls and WAFs.
Ability to analyze traffic flows and identify anomalies or performance issues.
Knowledgeable in security frameworks and standards (e.g., PCI DSS, HIPAA, GDPR) and how firewalls and WAFs ensure compliance.
Understanding of best practices for securing web applications, network perimeters, and internal communications.
Ability to fine-tune firewalls and WAFs to ensure they don't create bottlenecks while still providing effective security.
Knowledge of controlling traffic volume to prevent denial-of-service attacks and maintaining system performance (traffic shaping).
Strong analytic skills for diagnosing and resolving complex firewall and WAF related issues.
Root-cause analysis of network security breaches or web application vulnerabilities.
Effective team player and collaborator.
Ability to document firewall and WAF configurations, changes, and security incidents for internal records and auditing.
Provide technical support in Change Management processes that directly impact production environments with regards to Firewall and WAF configuration changes.
Provide training to the government, and their successors, on details of the migration process, administration, maintenance, support, and operational use of the solution.
Works with Program and Project Management throughout the contract period.
Participates in special projects, as needed.
Resolve technical O&M problems that occur and on-call support for non-business hours.
Provide Weekly and on-demand Status Reports on work performed.



Desired Skills:



Experience with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio, SharePoint, Confluence, ServiceNow, Trello, JIRA, and MS Teams.
Actively certified in Azure, Akamai, or similar.
Experience with SCRUM and Kanban Agile Methodologies.
Experience with any HHS agencies or entities.
Demonstrated strong technical skills and analytic abilities, as well as experience performing system security analysis and risk management.
Demonstrated experience performing complex technical tasks with minimal direction.
Demonstrated experience in translating an understanding of systems and applications into test plans and performing hands-on testing.
Possesses experience with communicating and presenting to leadership and decision-makers.
Possess a broad knowledge of Firewall and WAF best practices, policies, and guidance.

** 3rd party and subcontract staffing agencies are not eligible for partnership in this position. 3rd party subcontractors need not apply.
This position requires candidates to be eligible to work in the United States, directly for an employer, without sponsorship now or anytime in the future.
This client is a US Federal Government contractor and is legally required to hire US Citizens. US Citizens will only be considered for this role.
Due to the nature of the work, a United States Government Clearance is required to be eligible for the position. **

Keywords: Softworld Inc, Boston , Azure Firewall/Akamai WAF Engineer, Engineering , Wellesley, Massachusetts