Palo Alto Networks Security Engineer

Arctiq is a global, intelligence-driven technology services company delivering professional and managed services across Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure, Networking & Connected Experiences, Cybersecurity, Data & AI, Autonomous Operations & Intelligence, and Enterprise Service Management. We help organizations operate, secure, and modernize complex environments by unifying infrastructure, networking, data, security, automation, and observability under a single, integrated operating model. Our work focuses on helping customers reduce operational friction, improve resilience, and make better, faster decisions as their environments evolve. Arctiq builds on decades of industry expertise and a customer-centric ethos to deliver exceptional value to clients across diverse industries.

We are seeking a highly analytical and experienced Palo Alto Networks Security Engineer to support the administration, optimization, and ongoing improvement of the organization’s network security environment. This role will focus heavily on Palo Alto Networks Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) capabilities, including application and user identification, URL filtering, traffic analysis, security policy optimization, and Cortex XDR.

This role requires a security-focused professional who can investigate and resolve complex firewall policy and network traffic issues while working effectively across technical and business teams. The ideal candidate will be comfortable taking an investigative approach—identifying the policy and traffic involved, tracing activity back to the appropriate system or application, and partnering with the respective owner to validate business requirements and determine the appropriate action. The role will also support ongoing audit activities and requires a security-first mindset when evaluating and remediating permissive policies.

This is a remote contract opportunity with one of Arctiq's clients. This position requires strict 8am-5pm availability during the agreed-upon business hours.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

• Administer, analyze, and optimize Palo Alto Networks NGFW environments, including App-ID, User-ID, URL Filtering, security policies, traffic, logs, sessions, and security events.
• Investigate firewall policies and network traffic, including permissive or potentially unauthorized rules, to identify the source, purpose, risk, and appropriate business/system owner; trace traffic and gather supporting evidence when ownership or activity is disputed.
• Partner with system owners, application teams, network/infrastructure teams, and business stakeholders to validate traffic, understand business requirements, resolve ownership discrepancies, and determine appropriate security and policy actions.
• Evaluate and optimize firewall rules through consolidation, modification, cleanup, and removal, balancing security requirements and audit findings with potential operational impact to critical business applications.
• Investigate complex application connectivity and security issues using traffic analysis, logs, packet captures, and other diagnostic techniques, making appropriate policy adjustments without unnecessarily weakening security controls.
• Support security audits by identifying overly permissive policies, documenting findings, validating business justification, coordinating remediation, and maintaining accurate records of policies, testing, approvals, changes, and operational impact.
• Support and administer Cortex XDR, including analysis of alerts, endpoint security events, and associated telemetry.
• Apply a security-first mindset, strong analytical judgment, and business acumen when assessing security risks, policy changes, and their potential impact on business operations.
• Follow established ITIL, change management, and security governance processes, ensuring firewall and security policy changes are appropriately tested, documented, reviewed, and approved before implementation.
• Proactively identify opportunities to improve firewall security posture, performance, policy efficiency, and operational processes, including automation using APIs, CLI tools, Python, or other scripting languages.
• Work independently to investigate issues, develop solutions, and execute approved changes while maintaining effective communication and collaboration with technical and business stakeholders.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Strong hands-on experience administering and optimizing Palo Alto Networks NGFW environments.
• Demonstrated proficiency with:
  • App-ID
  • User-ID
  • URL Filtering
  • Security policies and rule optimization
  • Firewall traffic and log analysis
• Experience with Cortex XDR and endpoint/security event analysis.
• Strong understanding of network security concepts, firewall architectures, application traffic, and security policy design.
• Advanced analytical and troubleshooting skills, with the ability to interpret complex traffic and log data.
• Demonstrated ability to assess security improvements while considering potential business and application impacts.
• Strong understanding of ITIL and formal change control processes.
• Experience making security policy changes in environments where service availability and operational stability are critical.
• Ability to document, test, and validate changes before implementation.
• Experience with Palo Alto APIs, CLI tools, Python, or other scripting/automation technologies.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Ability to work effectively as part of a team while also independently managing assigned technical responsibilities.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

• Palo Alto Networks certifications such as PCNSA, PCNSE, or PCCET.
• Experience with large-scale or enterprise Palo Alto firewall environments.
• Experience with firewall rulebase cleanup, optimization, and security policy remediation projects.
• Experience with network packet analysis and tools such as Wireshark.
• Familiarity with SIEM, SOAR, or other security monitoring and automation platforms.
• Experience automating firewall administration and security operations using Python or REST APIs.

WORK AVAILABILITY REQUIREMENT

• This position requires strict 8x5 availability during the agreed-upon business hours.
• The selected candidate must be fully dedicated to this engagement during those hours.
• Candidates must be able to maintain consistent availability and responsiveness throughout the designated business hours.

Arctiq is an equal opportunity employer. If you need any accommodations or adjustments throughout the interview process and beyond, please let us know. We celebrate our inclusive work environment and welcome members of all backgrounds and perspectives to apply.

We thank you for your interest in joining the Arctiq team! While we welcome all applicants, only those who are selected for an interview will be contacted.