How To Become A Firewall Engineer: What It Is and Career Path

What is a firewall engineer and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

Quoted expert

Andrea Welker Ph.D.

Firewall engineers are in charge of maintaining IT infrastructure systems safe from an external security breach. They design and develop protective measures to keep the information intact, primarily by configuring firewall settings, managing private networks, and installing protective hardware.

Working as a firewall engineer, you will troubleshoot problems related to security risks. This, at times, entails responding quickly to crisis situations that see company assets jeopardized. You will be responsible for designing and efficiently applying safety policies to projects as well.

You will work together with a team of IT engineers, reporting to a systems manager. You might be expected to occasionally work odd hours while performing maintenance work on systems used for daily operations. You will follow up on client reviews and create status reports to track the service you have performed.

What general advice would you give to a firewall engineer?

Andrea Welker Ph.D.

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, College of Engineering Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Villanova University

Be open to new experiences. Find a good mentor. Become a valued employee. Always remember that you are designing something for someone.

ScoreFirewall EngineerUS Average

Salary

7.6

Avg. Salary $99,357

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

5.7

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.6

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.31%

Asian 13.93%

Black or African American 7.99%

Hispanic or Latino 11.71%

Unknown 5.01%

White 61.05%

Gender

female 6.57%

male 93.43%

Age - 42

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 42

Stress level

5.7

Stress level is manageable

7.1 - high

Complexity level

6.7

Complexity level is challenging

7 - challenging

Work life balance

7.1

Work life balance is good

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a firewall engineer

Explore firewall engineer education requirements

Most common firewall engineer degrees

Bachelor's

68.4 %

Master's

16.7 %

Associate

8.8 %

Start to develop specific firewall engineer skills

Skills	Percentages
Network Security	10.77%
Cisco Asa	7.15%
Azure	6.16%
ASA	5.50%
Troubleshoot	5.33%

Complete relevant firewall engineer training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 3-6 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New firewall engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a firewall engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real firewall engineer resumes.

Research firewall engineer duties and responsibilities

Excele at managing major network-wide upgrades; improve speed and predictability of multicast and order-routing data.
Involve in the modification and removal of BGP from the MPLS routers.
Replace Cisco routers with ASA failover pair as a part of project to upgrade the private line to MPLS connection.
Provide technical expertise and support of network devices and security peripherals including Cisco routers and switches.

Prepare your firewall engineer resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your firewall engineer resume.

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