Network Security Engineer

Job Description: About the Role As a Senior Network Security Engineer at Altera, you will serve as a senior technical authority responsible for defining and advancing the enterprise network security strategy, architecture, and technical roadmap across on-premises, cloud, data center, laboratory, campus, WAN, and hybrid environments. You will architect secure, resilient, and scalable network solutions grounded in Zero Trust, least-privilege access, micro-segmentation, and secure-by-design principles, while providing technical leadership across firewalls, ZTNA, SASE, SD-WAN, NDR, IDS/IPS, network telemetry, and security automation. This role combines deep hands-on engineering expertise with strategic architecture ownership and cross-functional influence.

Responsibilities

• You will partner closely with Network Engineering, Cloud, Infrastructure, DevOps, Product Security, and Risk teams to translate security requirements into implementable designs, serve as a senior escalation point for complex security incidents and architecture decisions, and drive measurable improvements in attack-path reduction, segmentation, rule hygiene, visibility, resilience, and overall security posture.
• You will also help establish engineering standards, reference architectures, governance practices, and repeatable processes while mentoring engineers and communicating complex technical risks and recommendations to both technical and executive audiences.
• Technical Strategy & Architecture Ownership Define and evolve Altera’s enterprise network security strategy, target-state architecture, technical roadmap, and reusable reference patterns.
• Serve as the senior technical authority for complex network security decisions, design exceptions, and modernization initiatives.
• Drive adoption of Zero Trust, least-privilege access, micro-segmentation, and secure-by-design network principles.
• Establish architecture standards, decision criteria, and measurable outcomes for attack-path reduction, rule hygiene, segmentation coverage, resilience, and network visibility.
• Network Security Architecture & Engineering Architect and review secure designs for data center, campus, laboratory, cloud, WAN, remote-access, and hybrid environments.
• Design segmentation and traffic-control models using security zones, VRFs, next-generation firewalls, secure routing, identity-aware access, and workload-level controls.
• Evaluate and guide adoption of ZTNA, SWG, SASE, SD-WAN, NDR, IDS/IPS, firewall, and network-security automation capabilities.
• Partner with network, cloud, platform, product security, and operations teams to translate security requirements into implementable designs.
• Validate architecture through design reviews, configuration analysis, packet and flow analysis, resilience testing, and post-implementation verification.
• Conduct ongoing firewall administration and operations including policy lifecycle management, rule administration, hardening, and exception governance.
• Threat Detection, Monitoring, & Incident Response Provide senior technical expertise during investigations involving network intrusion, lateral movement, command-and-control activity, privilege misuse, and data exfiltration.
• Design and improve network telemetry, logging, detection coverage, and correlation across SIEM, NDR, firewalls, proxies, DNS, VPN, and cloud network services.
• Perform or guide packet capture, flow analysis, protocol troubleshooting, and root-cause analysis for complex security events.
• Act as a technical escalation point during major incidents and translate findings into architecture improvements, detection enhancements, and remediation plans.
• Risk Management, Governance & Compliance Perform security architecture and risk assessments for new systems, cloud services, network changes, and exceptions.
• Author and maintain network security standards, reference architectures, technical guidelines, and control requirements.
• Align designs with relevant frameworks and requirements, including NIST CSF, NIST SP 800-53, NIST SP 800-207, and ISO/IEC 27001.
• Provide technical evidence and remediation guidance for audits, assessments, and control-validation activities.
• & Communication Serve as a trusted technical advisor to IT & Engineering teams including Network Engineering, Cloud, Infrastructure, DevOps, Product Security, Risk, Privacy, and Legal stakeholders.
• Facilitate architecture workshops and design reviews, clearly documenting decisions, risks, assumptions, and required controls.
• Translate complex technical risks into practical, business-aligned recommendations for engineering and executive audiences.
• Influence delivery teams without direct authority and mentor engineers through technical guidance, peer review, and knowledge sharing.
• & Influence Excellent executive‑level communication skills.
• Proven ability to own technical outcomes from discovery and requirements through design, implementation guidance, validation, and operational transition.

Requirements

• Ability to translate technical concepts into business‑aligned recommendations.
• Strong stakeholder management across technical and non‑technical teams.
• Applicants must be eligible for any required U.S. export authorizations. #LI-MD1 Qualifications: Minimum Qualifications: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, Electrical Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of experience in enterprise networking and cybersecurity, including substantial experience designing security architecture for large, distributed environments.
• Demonstrated success serving as a principal engineer, architect, or senior technical authority for complex network-security programs and transformations.

Preferred

• Deep expertise in enterprise network architecture, TCP/IP, routing, switching, BGP, DNS, TLS, proxies, VPN, firewalls, IDS/IPS, segmentation, and Zero Trust.
• Hands-on experience with next-generation firewalls, firewall policy governance, ZTNA, SWG, SASE, SD-WAN, NDR, SIEM, and related network-security controls.
• Strong packet capture, protocol analysis, network-flow analysis, and complex troubleshooting skills.
• Experience designing secure network connectivity and controls across on-prem, cloud and hybrid environments.
• Experience with common enterprise platforms such as Cisco, Palo Alto Networks, Tufin, Azure, AWS, or comparable technologies.
• Strong understanding of high availability, failover, capacity, secure management planes, encrypted connectivity, and resilient architecture.
• Operational & Strategic Skills Experience in firewall management, administration, and operations including firewall architecture, policy lifecycle management, rule recertification, configuration hardening, and operational governance.
• Ability to identify and reduce attack paths, improve rule hygiene, expand segmentation coverage, and strengthen network telemetry.
• Proficiency in network incident response, technical escalation, root-cause analysis, and remediation design.
• Ability to establish repeatable engineering processes, architecture review methods, validation criteria, and operational runbooks.
• Experience automating network-security analysis, policy management, validation, or reporting using Python, APIs, infrastructure-as-code, KQL, or similar technologies.

Pay

Range The pay range below is for Bay Area California only.

Actual salary may vary based on a number of factors including job location, job-related knowledge, skills, experiences, trainings, etc.

We also offer incentive opportunities that reward employees based on individual and company performance. $133,200 - $192,825 USD We use artificial intelligence to screen, assess, or select applicants for the position.

Job Type

Regular Shift: Shift 1 (United States of America) Primary Location: San Jose, California, United States Additional Locations: Posting Statement: All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, religious creed, sex, national origin, ancestry, age, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, military and veteran status, marital status, pregnancy, gender, gender expression, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by local law, regulation, or ordinance.