Network Security Manager

Role Overview

We are seeking a highly experienced and strategic Network Security Manager to lead our client's security engineering team while simultaneously spearheading a critical technology cut-over and transition project. This role requires a blend of senior leadership, deep technical expertise, and hands-on involvement to develop our long-term security architecture and ensure the seamless operational transfer of new firewall and network security platforms from project to Business As Usual (BAU) operations.

Key Strategic Responsibilities

The successful candidate will be accountable for defining, implementing, and governing the overall network security posture:

• Security Strategy and Architecture: Develop and execute a comprehensive network security strategy, ensuring alignment with organisational risk tolerance, business goals, and regulatory mandates.
• Team Leadership and Development: Lead, mentor, and foster the professional growth of a specialised team of network security engineers and analysts, cultivating a high-performance, collaborative security culture.
• Infrastructure Design Oversight: Direct the end-to-end lifecycle, from architectural design through implementation and maintenance, of secure network controls (e.g., Firewalls, VPNs, IDS/IPS, Proxies, and Load Balancers).
• Incident and Vulnerability Management: Take command of critical network security incidents, ensuring rapid response, thorough investigation, and effective remediation. Coordinate regular vulnerability assessments and penetration tests, driving risk-prioritised mitigation efforts.
• Policy and Governance: Establish, implement, and enforce robust network security policies and operational procedures, ensuring consistent compliance with all internal standards and external regulatory frameworks (e.g., ACSC guidelines).
• Monitoring and Reporting: Oversee continuous monitoring of network activity for malicious indicators. Prepare executive-level security reports, providing data-driven insights, metrics, and actionable recommendations to senior leadership.

Critical Project Transition Activities

Role
This role serves as the central liaison between the current project team and the future operational support organisation (including IBM CSS BAU Ops, SOC, and Network Security teams):

• Operational Liaison: Serve as the designated Single Point of Contact (SPOC) for all operational security teams, facilitating clear communication across the project lifecycle.
• Knowledge Transfer (KT): Act as the essential bridge to ensure seamless knowledge transfer and smooth technical transition of newly implemented security solutions to the BAU support teams.
• Cut-over Management: Provide essential support during implementation and cut-over meetings, including defining necessary test cases and validating the integration of firewalls into the security ecosystem (monitoring, logging, and backup).
• Technical Guidance: Provide operational inputs to the project team, particularly regarding firewall policy optimisation, configuration tuning, threat profile implementation using App-ID, and supporting critical VPN migration activities.
• Documentation: Create and finalise all technical and process documentation required for the formal handover and successful long-term operational support of the new infrastructure.
• On-Site Support: Be available for physical visits to the Data Centre (DC) to support project cut-over activities, which may require working off-hours and weekends.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Experience: 15+ years of demonstrable experience in network security engineering, with a minimum of 2 years in a managerial or leadership role.
• Network Security Expertise: Extensive, hands-on experience configuring and managing core network security technologies, including Firewalls, Intrusion Prevention Systems (IPS), VPNs, Web Proxies, and Load Balancers.
• Networking Fundamentals: A strong and practical understanding of foundational networking protocols (TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/S, etc.) and complex network design principles.
• Security Operations: Direct experience with incident response procedures and security forensics.
• Cloud Security: Familiarity with modern cloud security principles and experience securing hybrid and multi-cloud environments.
• Certification: Possession of a relevant and current Network Certification is mandatory.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, Cybersecurity, or a related technical field.
• Automation Proficiency: Required hands-on proficiency with security automation and orchestration technologies, including tools such as Ansible, Power Automate, and Tufin.
• Advanced Certifications: Highly preferred certifications include CISSP, CISM, CISA, or CCNP Security. Vendor-specific certifications (e.g., Palo Alto, F5, Prisma, Illumio) across Firewall, Proxy, Load Balancer, and Micro-Segmentation technologies are highly valued.
• Industry Knowledge: Previous background working within the Utilities sector or other critical infrastructure environments.
• Compliance Knowledge: Working knowledge of regulatory and compliance frameworks such as SOCI.
• Cloud Platform: Specific security expertise with Azure cloud environments.

At Randstad, we are passionate about providing equal employment opportunities and embracing diversity to the benefit of all. We actively encourage applications from any background.