Security Engineer - Edge & Cloud Security (Akamai / AWS)

Aquent is partnering with a leading financial services organization at the forefront of digital innovation, dedicated to securing critical customer data and delivering seamless, protected experiences. This is an incredible opportunity to join a team that values innovation, resilience, and cutting-edge security practices, directly contributing to the foundational security of their evolving digital landscape.

About the Opportunity

We are seeking a highly experienced and passionate Senior Security Engineer with deep expertise in Edge & Cloud Security to play a pivotal role in safeguarding our client's applications during a monumental enterprise cloud migration to AWS. This is not just a role; it's a chance to be the central figure in defending the application layer, ensuring robust security without compromising the user experience. You will be the frontline subject matter expert, making critical decisions that directly protect millions of users and ensure the integrity of vital financial operations. If you thrive on challenges and want to make a tangible impact on a global scale, this is the perfect opportunity to lead the charge in advanced application security.

Your Impact and Key Responsibilities

As a Security Engineer specializing in Edge & Cloud Security, you will be instrumental in architecting and maintaining a resilient security posture across hybrid and cloud environments. You will directly influence the security roadmap, protect against sophisticated threats, and enable a seamless transition to a cloud-native architecture. Your contributions will directly ensure the trust and safety of our client's digital platforms.

• Design, optimize, and meticulously maintain critical Akamai WAF rulesets, rate-limiting policies, and custom bot detection conditions, ensuring they are perfectly aligned with diverse application risk profiles.
• Collaborate strategically with cloud migration teams, designing secure routing cutovers, guaranteeing policy parity between on-premise and cloud workloads, and vigilantly safeguarding all endpoints throughout complex transitional states.
• Act as the Tier-3 escalation authority during active Layer 7 attacks, automated scraping, credential stuffing, and zero-day exploit attempts, performing rapid triage and conducting thorough post-incident root cause analyses.
• Establish robust baseline evaluation methodologies for all new rule updates, orchestrating staging deployments, and proactively suppressing false positives to maintain optimal security efficacy.
• Integrate Akamai log streams (DataStream, SIEM integration) with central logging solutions such as Splunk and Datadog to construct dynamic threat dashboards and provide clear, actionable executive reporting.
• Create and maintain precise architectural diagrams, detailed runbooks, and comprehensive policy documentation, empowering operational handoffs and fostering collaborative knowledge sharing across engineering teams.

What You Bring: Must-Have Qualifications

Your expertise will be crucial in building and maintaining cutting-edge security defenses. We are looking for individuals who possess a blend of hands-on technical mastery and strategic security insight.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or equivalent practical experience demonstrating a strong foundation in technical principles.
• 5+ years of direct, hands-on experience deploying, managing, and expertly tuning Akamai Web Application Firewall (Kona / App & API Protector) and Bot Manager Premier (BMP) within high-traffic, multi-tenant enterprise architectures.
• A proven track record in incident response, including tuning behavioral bot detections, effectively mitigating Layer 7 DDoS and credential stuffing attacks, and eliminating false positives without compromising legitimate user experience.
• Deep understanding of OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities, critical API security risks, HTTP/S protocol behaviors, and advanced threat mitigation strategies specifically at the edge.
• Working knowledge of AWS networking and application architectures (e.g., ALBs, CloudFront, Route 53, VPCs) and how edge proxies seamlessly integrate into complex hybrid cloud routing.
• Strong proficiency in network analysis tools such as Wireshark, cURL, Fiddler, and Postman, alongside browser inspection techniques for efficient payload debugging.
• Extensive experience with enterprise log analysis and SIEM tooling (e.g., Splunk, Elastic, Sentinel).
• Exceptional verbal and written technical communication skills, with the confidence and ability to advise both software engineers and senior leadership effectively during critical incidents.

What Will Set You Apart: Preferred Qualifications

While not strictly required, these qualifications will distinguish you as an exceptional candidate ready to drive innovation and elevate our security posture even further.

• Demonstrated experience managing edge security configurations through Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Akamai CLI / APIs).
• Previous security engineering experience specifically within financial services, e-commerce, or other highly regulated enterprise environments.
• Active and relevant security or cloud certifications, such as Akamai Certified Specialist, AWS Certified Security - Specialty, CCSP, or GIAC (GWAPT, GCIH).