Optec
Senior Network and Security Engineer

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Senior Role within a Leading Network and Security Service Provider in Cardiff
Salary: £40,113 to £45,121 (dependent upon experience)
Opportunity to join 24/7 On Call rota (1 week in 6) with an additional 13.5% on call allowance
Location: Cardiff Bay location - easily commutable with parking
Type: Full Time, Permanent
Who Are OPTEC?
Optec are a leading Network and Security specialist and the only Fortinet Expert Partner in Wales, delivering enterprise networking and cyber security solutions across the UK and Europe.
As our Professional Services team continues to grow, we're looking for a Network & Security Engineer to join the team and deliver customer projects across a wide range of technologies, while developing their career alongside some of the industry's most experienced network and security professionals.
Projects include enterprise firewall deployments, Secure SD WAN, switching, wireless, cloud networking and security solutions for customers across the UK and Europe.
What You’ll Be Doing
This is a hands-on third line engineering role within a professional services team. You will lead the technical delivery of complex customer projects, from discovery and detailed planning through design, implementation, migration, testing and handover.
The role is heavily focused on Fortinet technologies, particularly FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer, Secure SD-WAN and associated networking and security solutions.
Alongside project delivery, you will act as a senior technical point of reference for the team. You will review designs and implementation plans, coach other engineers, improve engineering standards and provide technical assurance on higher risk work. This is technical leadership rather than direct people management.
This hybrid role combines office-based working, home working and occasional travel to customer sites throughout the UK.
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Role Responsibilities
The responsibilities of the role are:
- Own the technical delivery of enterprise and strategic customer projects, including complex and multi-site implementations and migrations.
- Lead the design, deployment and migration of Fortinet solutions, with a strong focus on FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer and Secure SD-WAN.
- Produce and review high-quality low-level designs, implementation plans, methods of procedure, test plans, as built documentation and handover packs.
- Lead technical discovery sessions, customer workshops, design reviews and implementation planning meetings.
- Provide technical assurance before and during deployment, identifying risks, dependencies, rollback requirements and appropriate mitigations.
- Act as the escalation point for complex implementation issues and troubleshoot across firewalls, routing, switching, VPNs, wireless and cloud connectivity.
- Guide, mentor and coach engineers, including peer review of designs, plans, configurations and technical documentation.
- Develop reusable standards, templates, reference configurations, automation and engineering best practice for Professional Services.
- Support presales engagements through technical scoping, solution validation, effort estimation and identification of delivery risks.
- Represent Optec as a trusted technical adviser during senior customer, partner and vendor engagements.
- Complete testing and customer acceptance activities, then provide an effective operational handover into Managed Services.
What You’ll Bring
You'll have skills and experience in:
- Substantial experience delivering complex network and security projects within an MSP, consultancy, systems integrator or enterprise environment.
- Strong practical experience designing, deploying and troubleshooting FortiGate firewalls in production environments.
- Experience with FortiManager based configuration and policy management, and a sound understanding of FortiAnalyzer logging and reporting.
- Strong knowledge of routing, switching, TCP/IP, VLANs, dynamic routing, IPsec VPNs, high availability and network security principles.
- Experience delivering Secure SD-WAN solutions, ideally including multi-site deployments and dynamic routing over VPN overlays.
- Excellent diagnostic skills and the judgement to lead technical recovery when a deployment does not proceed as expected.
- A consistent record of producing clear and accurate customer facing technical documentation.
- Confidence leading technical workshops and communicating clearly with engineers, project stakeholders and senior customer contacts.
- A collaborative approach to peer review, mentoring and knowledge sharing, with the ability to raise engineering quality across a team.
- Strong ownership, organisation and commercial awareness, including an understanding of project scope, effort and change control.


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Why Join OPTEC
- Work on varied enterprise network and cyber security projects with a strong Fortinet focus.
- Join an experienced Professional Services Team where technical quality and continual improvement matter.
- Fully funded technical training and certifications, with a clear career framework.
- Competitive salary
- Hybrid working (3 days in the office per week)
- Fully funded technical training and certifications
- Clear career progression
- Pension scheme
- 25 days annual leave plus bank holidays
- Employee wellbeing programme
- Free onsite parking
If you're looking to take the next step in your networking career and work on enterprise networking and cyber security projects alongside some of the industry's most experienced engineers, we'd love to hear from you.
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