Fortinet Network Engineer

Title: Fortinet Network Engineer

Duration: 6+ Months

Location: Location: Whippany, NJ (Hybrid – 3 days/week onsite)

Position Overview

This role supports a major financial services customer's global network security organization, focused on the device-level engineering and operation of Fortinet IDS/IPS appliances, FortiManager, and FortiAnalyzer across a global data center footprint.

Key Responsibilities

• Deploy, onboard, and operate Fortinet IDS/IPS appliances across global data centers, including interface/VLAN configuration, connectivity validation, and production handover

• Operate FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer for device health monitoring, configuration synchronization, policy compliance, and signature tuning

• Engineer traffic visibility for IDS sensors using SPAN sessions, TAP connectivity, and port mirroring on Cisco IOS and NX-OS switching infrastructure

• Perform IDS health checks, signature tuning, and alert troubleshooting to reduce false positives and improve detection effectiveness

• Execute network discovery and mapping (e.g., NetBrain, Infoblox) to trace traffic paths, switch connectivity, firewall uplinks, and routing dependencies for IDS placement

• Validate routing adjacencies, next-hop reachability, and traffic paths affecting IDS capture and firewall inspection across core and distribution layers

• Conduct packet-level traffic analysis (Wireshark, tcpdump) to diagnose visibility gaps, blocked flows, and connectivity issues

• Author Low-Level Design (LLD) documentation, topology diagrams, patching/installation records, and operational runbooks for IDS and firewall infrastructure

• Validate firewall and NAT connectivity across Palo Alto, Check Point, Cisco Firepower, and Fortinet platforms to support IDS visibility and application connectivity (device/connectivity validation, not primary policy or rule-set ownership)

• Integrate IDS and firewall logs into SIEM platforms (e.g., Splunk) to support centralized threat detection and alert correlation

• Troubleshoot device health, interface, routing, and visibility issues across on-premises and cloud (AWS/Azure) environments

• Perform configuration backups and version tracking for Fortinet appliances and FortiManager policies to support rollback readiness and audit requirements

• Partner with Security Operations Center analysts to refine alert thresholds and escalation criteria

• Execute change management activities (e.g., ServiceNow, JIRA, Confluence) under ITIL practices, including implementation review, deployment validation, and post-change verification

• Automate repeatable validation and health-check tasks using Python and Ansible to improve deployment consistency and reduce manual effort

Required Qualifications

• Hands-on Fortinet FortiGate engineering and operations: appliance deployment, onboarding, interface/VLAN configuration, device health, and firmware/patching — distinct from firewall policy or rule-set authorship

• Hands-on experience with FortiManager and FortiAnalyzer: device management, configuration compliance, log and signature analysis

• Strong TCP/IP and routing protocol fundamentals (BGP, OSPF, static routing), with the ability to troubleshoot adjacency, reachability, and traffic-path issues

• Experience engineering traffic visibility for security monitoring: SPAN, TAP, and port mirroring on Cisco IOS/NX-OS switching platforms

• Packet-level troubleshooting using Wireshark and/or tcpdump

• Experience authoring Low-Level Design (LLD) documentation, network topology diagrams, and operational runbooks

• Ability to validate firewall and NAT connectivity across multiple platforms (Palo Alto, Check Point, Cisco Firepower, Fortinet) to support security monitoring and application connectivity

• Experience working within formal change-management and incident-management processes