Job Summary
HCLTech is seeking two experienced professionals under one integrated critical role covering hybrid cloud and enterprise networking, multi-vendor firewall and VPN engineering, and controlled change execution. The team will provide senior technical ownership across on-premises, data-center and public-cloud environments, resolve complex incidents, lead root-cause analysis, deliver high-risk changes, strengthen security and operational resilience, and mentor L1/L2 engineers.
Key Responsibilities
• Act as the highest-level internal escalation point for firewall and VPN incidents, resolving complex, high-severity issues within SLA.
• Perform deep-dive troubleshooting across Palo Alto, Fortinet, and Cisco FTD firewalls, including packet captures, session/flow analysis, and log correlation.
• Design, review, and validate firewall rulebases, security policies, NAT, routing, and high-availability configurations.
• Own the configuration, optimization, and troubleshooting of VPN and connectivity services: Remote Access VPN (RAVPN), Client-to-Site (C2S), Site-to-Site (S2S), and SD-WAN.
• Manage and maintain centralized management platforms — Panorama, FortiManager/FortiAnalyzer, and Cisco FMC — including policy push, object management, upgrades, and health monitoring.
• Plan and execute firmware/software upgrades, patching, and hardware refreshes with proper change management.
• Conduct root cause analysis (RCA) for recurring and major incidents and drive permanent corrective actions.
• Harden firewall configurations against security best practices and support audit, compliance, and vulnerability remediation activities.
• Create and maintain HLDs/LLDs, runbooks, SOPs, and knowledge base articles.
• Engage and manage vendor TAC cases through to resolution.
• Mentor and provide technical guidance to L1 and L2 engineers.
• Participate in an on-call rotation for critical escalations.
Skill Requirements
Firewall Platforms
• Palo Alto Networks (PA): Advanced hands-on experience with PA-Series NGFW, App-ID, User-ID, Content-ID, security profiles, zones, and troubleshooting.
• Fortinet (FortiGate): Strong expertise in FortiGate NGFW policy design, security profiles, VDOMs, and troubleshooting.
• Cisco FTD & FMC: Solid experience administering and troubleshooting Cisco Firepower Threat Defense (FTD) firewalls managed via Firepower Management Center (FMC).
Management Platforms
• Panorama – centralized management for Palo Alto.
• FortiManager / FortiAnalyzer – centralized management, logging, and reporting for Fortinet.
• Cisco FMC – centralized management for FTD.
Connectivity & VPN Services
• RAVPN (Remote Access VPN): GlobalProtect, FortiClient/SSL-VPN, Cisco AnyConnect/Secure Client.
• C2S (Client-to-Site): Client-based secure remote connectivity.
• S2S (Site-to-Site VPN): IPsec/IKEv1/IKEv2 tunnels, route-based and policy-based VPNs.
• SD-WAN: Design, deployment, and troubleshooting on Fortinet, Palo Alto (Prisma SD-WAN), and/or Cisco platforms.
Core Networking
• Strong TCP/IP, routing (BGP, OSPF, static), NAT, VLANs, and QoS fundamentals.
• Proficiency with packet capture and analysis (Wireshark, tcpdump, platform-native captures).
• High Availability (Active/Passive, Active/Active) design and troubleshooting.
Secondary (Good-to-Have) Skills
• Cloud security and firewalling (Azure, AWS, GCP) and Prisma Access / SASE.
• Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) concepts and deployment.
• Automation and scripting (Python, Ansible, REST APIs) for policy and configuration management.
• Integration with SIEM, NAC, and MFA/identity solutions.
• Experience with ITSM tools (ServiceNow) and structured change/incident/problem management (ITIL).
• Basic knowledge of Tufin, XSOAR