Operational Lead – Day-to-Day (D2D) Operations

We are looking for an experienced and proactive Operational Lead – Day-to-Day (D2D) Operations with a focus on cloud networking, security infrastructure, firewalls, and load balancers. This role involves managing and maintaining network services and security controls in a hybrid cloud environment to ensure performance, availability, and security of business-critical services. The ideal candidate will have strong experience in managing cloud and on-premise network/security infrastructures and leading daily operational activities across multiple platforms.

Location Saudi Arabia - Riyadh

Company Overview The company is a leading provider of expertise and managed services across all the major public and private cloud technologies. We’ve evolved Fanatical Support to encompass the entire customer journey — providing Fanatical Experience™ from first consultation to daily operations. Our passionate experts combine the power of proactive, always-on service and expertise with best-in-class tools and automation to deliver technology when and how our customers need it.

Responsibilities

• Lead daily operations and incident response across cloud and data center network infrastructure, including firewalls (FW), load balancers (LB), and security tools.
• Ensure uptime, performance, and integrity of cloud networking and perimeter security components.
• Administer and troubleshoot virtual and physical firewalls, VPNs, routers, switches, and load balancers (e.g., F5, Palo Alto, Fortinet).
• Monitor and manage network traffic, routing policies, and segmentation across hybrid environments.
• Maintain rule bases, NAT, ACLs, and policies on firewalls and security appliances.
• Coordinate with security, cloud, and infrastructure teams to ensure security compliance and risk mitigation.
• Drive operational excellence in response handling, root cause analysis (RCA), and long-term remediation.
• Collaborate with cloud architects to optimize secure connectivity between on-prem and public cloud.
• Develop and maintain operational runbooks, SOPs, network diagrams, and security documentation.
• Participate in change management, patching cycles, and infrastructure upgrades with minimal service impact.
• Oversee monitoring and alerting for network and security devices, responding to issues as per SLAs.
• Lead the support team for Tier 2/3 escalations and guide junior network/security engineers.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in Information Technology, Computer Engineering, or related field.
• 8+ years of experience in IT network and security operations, with at least 2–3 years in a leadership role.
• Deep understanding of network protocols, routing, switching, VPNs, and security architectures.
• Hands-on experience with enterprise firewalls and next-gen security appliances (e.g., Palo Alto, Fortinet, Cisco ASA/Firepower).
• Experience managing load balancers and ADCs (e.g., F5, Citrix NetScaler, HAProxy, NGINX).
• Knowledge of cloud networking constructs and security groups in public clouds (AWS, Azure, GCP).
• Experience with IPS/IDS, SIEM tools, vulnerability management, and secure access controls.
• Proficiency in troubleshooting L2/L3 network issues and packet analysis tools (e.g., Wireshark).
• Familiarity with security best practices, hardening standards, and compliance frameworks (e.g., NIST, ISO 27001).
• Strong understanding of ITIL-based operational processes and incident/change/problem management.
• Excellent communication, coordination, and leadership skills.

Additional Skills (Good to have)

• Certifications: CCNP/CCIE, PCNSE, NSE4/NSE5, F5-CTS, or equivalent.
• Public cloud certifications (e.g., Azure Network Engineer, AWS Advanced Networking).
• Experience with Infrastructure as Code (IaC) for network automation (e.g., Terraform, Ansible).
• Familiarity with Zero Trust Architecture and SASE frameworks.
• Exposure to DevSecOps tools and security automation practices.
• ITIL Foundation certification.

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