Senior Network Security Engineer - Check Point Firewall

About the role

A senior Check Point firewall specialist is sought for a large-scale, multi-vendor security transformation programme in Dubai. The project migrates a mixed estate of Juniper, Huawei and Cisco firewalls to a new Check Point Quantum Force high-end appliance estate, deployed as high-availability clusters and managed via a Multi-Domain Smart-1 architecture. The role covers the full delivery lifecycle, from discovery and design through migration cutover and post-implementation support, and requires travel to other regions as projects require.

Key responsibilities

• Design high-level and low-level Check Point gateway cluster architectures, including ClusterXL, VLANs, addressing, routing integration and threat prevention and sandboxing profiles
• Define the multi-domain management and logging architecture and the target security policy standards
• Lead policy conversion from Juniper, Huawei and Cisco using Check Point SmartMove, then review, rationalize and normalize rules
• Build and commission Check Point appliances, configure interfaces and line cards, and set up the Smart-1 management and logging infrastructure
• Write cutover method statements and execute migrations within approved change windows, with rollback capability
• Run acceptance tests, provide hypercare support and hand over documentation and runbooks to customer operations teams
• Represent the delivery team in design reviews, change advisory boards and sign-offs, mentor junior engineers and contribute reusable design patterns

Required profile

• 8+ years in network security, with at least 5 years of hands-on Check Point delivery
• Valid, current Check Point Certified Security Expert (CCSE); CCSM, CCTE or complementary certifications are highly desirable
• At least two enterprise or carrier-scale Check Point deployments or migrations
• Experience with high-end appliances and high-throughput environments; strong command of Threat Prevention and sandboxing
• Preferred: service provider or telecom experience, including carrier backbones, EVPN, Segment Routing and carrier-grade change governance
• Willingness to travel and work extended or night-time maintenance windows

Required skills

• Check Point: Gaia OS, SmartConsole, Security Management, MDS/MLM, ClusterXL, SecureXL/CoreXL, SmartMove
• TCP/IP, OSPF, BGP, VLANs, link aggregation, NAT, IPSec VPN, high-availability design
• Advanced troubleshooting with fw monitor, tcpdump, kernel debug, cpview, cphaprob
• Production change management, method statements and rollback planning