Cybersecurity Systems Engineering Analyst

Vertage is seeking a Cybersecurity Systems Engineering Analyst to strengthen secure access and inspection capabilities across a 24x7 CSOC environment. You will support the Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) ecosystem alongside legacy Inspection Zone tooling, with a focus on maintaining confidentiality, integrity, availability, and regulatory compliance.

This onsite role in the United States centers on implementing, optimizing, monitoring, hardening, and continuously improving Palo Alto SASE platforms and related security controls. If you work comfortably across engineering and security operations, you will help drive consistent visibility, threat detection, and measurable improvements to incident analysis and response.

What You’ll Do

• Participate in implementation, support, and lifecycle management of Palo Alto Networks Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solutions (Prisma Access, Global Protect, Strata Cloud Manager) within a large-scale enterprise environment, while maintaining integration with Inspection Zone technologies (including F5 BIG-IP and SWG/Proxy).
• Design, deploy, and continuously optimize cloud-delivered security controls such as secure web gateway (SWG), CASB, ZTNA, and threat prevention, aligned to the Palo Alto SASE architecture.
• Provide advanced engineering support for SASE and Inspection Zone platforms, partnering with Security Operations, Network Engineering, and Incident Response teams.
• Drive security monitoring, telemetry integration, and policy enforcement across SASE and on-prem inspection environments to improve visibility and threat detection.
• Perform system hardening, high availability design, and resilience engineering for SASE and Inspection Zone environments, including failover strategy and service continuity planning.
• Apply Palo Alto threat intelligence and best practices to proactively reduce enterprise risk exposure by maintaining awareness of the global threat landscape.
• Improve detection and response capabilities by leveraging SASE telemetry to enhance incident analysis, threat hunting, and mitigation effectiveness.
• Develop and report operational and security metrics (such as policy effectiveness, threat prevention performance, and user activity visibility) to support leadership decisions and improve operational maturity.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams and leadership to align SASE strategy with enterprise security architecture and modernization initiatives, including legacy proxy replacement, and with business objectives.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts degree, preferably in Cybersecurity, Information Security, Computer Science, Management Information Systems, or a closely related field.
• Alternatively, 4+ years of Cybersecurity and/or IT-related experience in military information security and/or system administration roles may substitute for a degree.
• If you hold a degree, 3+ years of experience in Cybersecurity fields or roles focused on cybersecurity or IT functions is required.
• Hands-on experience with Palo Alto Networks SASE (Prisma Access), including Mobile Users, Remote Networks, and Service Connections.
• Strong understanding of Security Service Edge (SSE) capabilities, including SWG, CASB, ZTNA, DNS Security, and SaaS security.
• Expertise in policy design, traffic steering, and segmentation within cloud-delivered security platforms.
• Strong knowledge of network protocols (BGP, IPSec, routing, NAT) and SASE connectivity design.
• Experience integrating SASE with on-prem Inspection Zone and hybrid cloud architecture.
• Proficiency with Global Protect and remote access/VPN solutions.

Technologies You’ll Work With

• Palo Alto Prisma Access, Global Protect, Strata Cloud Manager
• Palo Alto Networks Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)
• Palo Alto threat intelligence
• F5 BIG-IP; SWG/Proxy
• Secure web gateway (SWG), CASB, ZTNA, DNS Security, SaaS security
• IPSec, BGP, Network Address Translation (NAT), Routing
• Python, scripting, APIs, Terraform
• Remote access/VPN solutions

Preferred Skills

• Experience with automation and scalability using APIs and scripting, including infrastructure-as-code such as Python or Terraform.
• Strong background in high availability design, system hardening, and performance optimization.
• Experience leading or supporting migration from legacy proxy/multi-vendor environments to SASE platforms.
• Strong understanding of cybersecurity frameworks and best practices (NIST, CIS, Zero Trust).
• Proven ability to collaborate cross-functionally, communicate risk effectively, and deliver leadership-ready updates.
• Multiple industry standard certifications such as SANS GIAC/GCIA/GCIH/GCFA, CISSP, CISA, CISM, or other network/system security certifications.

Compensation: USD 50 - 55 per hour

Experience: 3+ years minimum

Location: Charlotte, onsite (United States). Travel: 5%-10%.

Employment Type: Temporary to permanent, with intent to convert to full-time after approximately 6 months.

Language

• English: professional working proficiency