Security Engineer IDS & Vulnerability Infrastructure

Summary

Verizon is seeking a Security Engineer to support the deployment, scaling, and operational health of its distributed intrusion detection and vulnerability scanning infrastructure. The role manages more than 900 Suricata IDS sensors, develops automation and telemetry pipelines, maintains physical server infrastructure, and supports data center logistics to ensure continuous network visibility.

Responsibilities

• Orchestrate the operational lifecycle of 900+ Suricata IDS sensors, including system-level performance tuning (CPU affinity, NUMA nodes, and other methods to prevent packet loss on high-throughput interfaces
• Develop and refine Logstash configurations, utilizing input, filter, mutate, and output stages to ensure telemetry accuracy and downstream data integrity for security analysis
• Engineer and deploy custom Suricata IDS rules and signatures, utilizing suricata-update to ensure the distributed fleet remains synchronized against evolving threats without manual intervention
• Automate the vulnerability management pipeline by maintaining and debugging Python and Bash backend code for Nessus scanning to ensure the pipeline runs autonomously via cron
• Manage the physical hardware lifecycle for Dell servers, including iDRAC administration, RAID configurations, and firmware updates to prevent hardware failures from degrading sensor uptime
• Execute data center logistics, including cabling, optics selection, passive tapping (Brocade/Gigamon), and the management of power, cooling, and rack-space ticketing to secure physical signal delivery

Skills

• Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience
• Four or more years of relevant experience required, demonstrated through one or a combination of work and/or military experience, or specialized training
• Enterprise Linux systems administration (RHEL, Rocky, CentOS) including package management and repository administration
• Network traffic and protocol analysis (tcpdump, pcap collection, Wireshark, BPF filtering)
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose common encapsulation types and perform deep inspection of protocols including DNS, TLS, HTTP, SSH, SNMP, SMTP, NTP
• Python or any scripting for infrastructure and backend automation
• Hands-on experience managing enterprise physical server hardware, out-of-band administration, and data center fiber infrastructure
• Experience with Suricata IDS rule basics, rule creation, and suricata-update rule builds
• Competency in compiling custom Suricata plugins for feature enhancement
• Ansible fleet orchestration using playbooks and Jinja templates
• Experience with Logstash pipelines (input, filter, mutate, output) and Splunk telemetry/dashboards
• Knowledge of Netflow collection and analysis
• Understanding of carrier-grade protocols including GTP, Diameter, SIP, and LDAP
• Experience in data center project management, including hardware build planning, purchasing, and facilities ticketing

Qualifications

Must Haves

• Bachelor's degree or four or more years of work experience
• Four or more years of relevant experience required, demonstrated through one or a combination of work and/or military experience, or specialized training
• Enterprise Linux systems administration (RHEL, Rocky, CentOS) including package management and repository administration
• Network traffic and protocol analysis (tcpdump, pcap collection, Wireshark, BPF filtering)
• Demonstrated ability to diagnose common encapsulation types and perform deep inspection of protocols including DNS, TLS, HTTP, SSH, SNMP, SMTP, NTP
• Python or any scripting for infrastructure and backend automation
• Hands-on experience managing enterprise physical server hardware, out-of-band administration, and data center fiber infrastructure

Nice to Haves

• Experience with Suricata IDS rule basics, rule creation, and suricata-update rule builds
• Competency in compiling custom Suricata plugins for feature enhancement
• Ansible fleet orchestration using playbooks and Jinja templates
• Experience with Logstash pipelines (input, filter, mutate, output) and Splunk telemetry/dashboards
• Knowledge of Netflow collection and analysis
• Understanding of carrier-grade protocols including GTP, Diameter, SIP, and LDAP
• Experience in data center project management, including hardware build planning, purchasing, and facilities ticketing

Benefits

• Health and wellness benefit options including medical, dental, vision, short and long term disability, basic life insurance, supplemental life insurance, AD&D insurance, identity theft protection, pet insurance and group home & auto insurance.
• Matched 401(k) savings plan.
• Up to 8 company paid holidays per year.
• Up to 6 personal days per year.
• Paid parental leave.
• Adoption assistance.
• Tuition assistance.
• Other incentives.
• Depending on the role, employees have the opportunity to receive compensation in the form of premium pay such as overtime, shift differential, holiday pay, allowances, etc.
• Newly hired employees receive up to 15 days of vacation per year, which grows with additional service.
• In this hybrid role, you'll have a defined work location that includes working from home and a minimum of three days per week in the office.