WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

As a Lead Firewall Software Engineer, you will provide technical leadership and mentorship to a team of network security engineers. You will be responsible for designing sprint scopes, managing firewall deployments, and driving innovation in cloud firewall capabilities. This role requires a strong understanding of network security principles, hands-on experience with firewall technologies, and the ability to lead and develop team members. Primary customers and peer groups will be Core Infrastructure Engineering, Corporate Information Security, and Nike Operations Center.

WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR

The candidate shall have enterprise level Security acumen, experience working on Palo Alto Next Generation Firewalls, Automation and managerial experience. 

• 8+ years of experience in network security engineering, with minimum 1+ years in a technical lead or mentorship role

• Deep hands-on expertise with Palo Alto Networks NGFW, Panorama, and Cloud NGFW / Prisma Access (SASE/SSE), ZTNA principles & micro segmentation

• Understanding of network design and operations across full stack technologies

• Experience with Network Access Control platforms such as Cisco ISE (TACACS+/RADIUS, posture, profiling)

• Hands-on experience with SSL/TLS decryption at scale and awareness of regional privacy regulations (GDPR, DPDP, CCPA)

• Experience integrating firewall telemetry with Splunk, Panorama logging, or equivalent SIEM/observability platforms

• Strong Communication, stakeholder management, and the ability to drive technical decisions across distributed teams

• Excellent problem-solving skills and ability to manage multiple priorities

• Strong proficiency in Python automation and software development, including API integrations, data processing, workflow automation, and operational tooling.

• Experience working with REST APIs, JSON, YAML, Git-based workflows, pull requests, code reviews, source control governance, and collaborative software development practices.

• Experience developing Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC) and Automation-as-Code solutions using Terraform, Ansible, or equivalent automation platforms.

• Experience designing and managing CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, Jenkins, Azure DevOps, GitLab CI, or similar platforms.

• Understanding of software development lifecycle (SDLC), testing methodologies, release management, version control, and secure coding best practices.

WHAT YOU'LL WORK ON

You will provide technical leadership for Nike's Network Security Platform Engineering initiatives, driving the evolution of firewall services from traditional operations toward Firewall-as-Code, Security Automation, Platform Engineering, Zero Trust, and cloud-native security solutions. You will lead a global team of engineers, define technical strategy, build scalable and reusable platforms, and accelerate Nike's adoption of automation-first security capabilities.

• Provide technical leadership to a globally distributed Network Security Engineering squad by establishing quarterly roadmaps, defining engineering priorities, and aligning technical execution with business objectives.

• Lead sprint planning, backlog prioritization, workload management, and delivery governance across multiple workstreams.

• Mentor, coach, and develop engineers through technical guidance, career development, and knowledge-sharing initiatives.

• Define and drive the strategic roadmap for Network Security Platforms, including Firewall-as-Code, Policy-as-Code, cloud security services, self-service platforms, and Zero Trust initiatives.

• Serve as the technical lead for major security engineering programs from ideation through production implementation.

• Drive architecture reviews, design decisions, and engineering standards across firewall, network access control, cloud security, and security automation domains.

• Identify cross-platform dependencies, assess architectural risks, and establish mitigation strategies for large-scale initiatives.

• Lead the design and implementation of Firewall-as-Code capabilities using Git-based workflows, Infrastructure-as-Code principles, APIs, and CI/CD pipelines.

• Drive automation-first delivery by building Python-based automation frameworks, workflow orchestration solutions, and policy lifecycle automation.

• Establish automated validation, testing, compliance, and deployment pipelines for firewall policy changes.

• Partner with platform and cloud engineering teams to integrate firewall services into enterprise DevSecOps workflows.

• Reduce operational toil through intelligent automation, self-healing capabilities, and reusable engineering services.

• Lead development and adoption of AI-assisted operations, automation agents, and intelligent remediation capabilities within the security platform.

• Evaluate and implement AIOps solutions that improve operational efficiency, automate incident response, and enhance security operations.

• Drive innovation initiatives focused on autonomous operations, predictive analytics, and engineering productivity improvements.

Preferred / Nice-To-Have Qualification:

• PCNSE, CCNP Security, CCIE Security, CISSP, or equivalent industry certification

• AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud security/networking certifications.

• Experience with GitOps technologies such as ArgoCD.

• Exposure to Crossplane, Kubernetes, Docker, and cloud-native platform engineering capabilities.

• Experience implementing Firewall-as-Code, Policy-as-Code, Infrastructure-as-Code, or Security-as-Code operating models.

• Knowledge of Agentic AI, AIOps frameworks, and autonomous operations platforms.