For more than 30 years, SonicWall has delivered a partner-first unified cybersecurity portfolio that helps SMBs, MSPs, and IT teams consolidate network security, endpoint security, security service edge (SSE), and threat response across hybrid environments. By bringing connected technology, real-time threat intelligence, automation, and expert services together, SonicWall helps organizations simplify security operations, achieve better security outcomes, and lower total cost of ownership. Backed by a global ecosystem of more than 17,000 partners, SonicWall delivers enterprise-grade protection built for SMB and mid-market realities.
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About the Role
We are seeking a Principal Engineer to lead the architecture and development of Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and SSL/TLS Decryption engines for our NGFW appliance and virtual firewall product lines. You will drive the design of high-throughput L7 inspection and threat prevention capabilities — including Anti-Virus, Anti-Spyware, IPS, Content Filtering, and Application Control — at scale across 10G–100G+ deployments.
Responsibilities
- Architect and evolve the DPI engine for multi-gigabit stream-based L7 traffic inspection on NGFW appliances.
- Lead design of the SSL/TLS decryption pipeline to enable security services inspection over encrypted traffic.
- Define integration strategy between the decryption layer and downstream security services (AV, IPS, Anti-Spyware, Content Filtering, Application Control).
- Drive hardware acceleration strategy for cryptographic and pattern-matching workloads.
- Champion security hardening practices and ensure compliance with modern cryptographic standards.
- Own architecture reviews, author technical specifications, define performance benchmarks, and mentor senior engineers.
Requirements
- 10+ years of C/C++ experience in high-performance networking, packet processing, or L7 security engines on NGFW or carrier-grade platforms.
- Strong expertise in SSL/TLS internals — TLS 1.2/1.3, PKI, certificate management, and OpenSSL/BoringSSL.
- Hands-on experience building or optimizing DPI or security service engines (AV, IPS, Content Filtering, or Application Control) on commercial NGFW platforms.
- Proficiency in multi-core, low-latency C/C++ programming — concurrency, memory optimization, and zero-copy techniques.
- Strong debugging and profiling skills across complex, multi-threaded networking environments.
Nice to Have
- Familiarity with NGFW security services from leading industry vendors.
- Exposure to modern encrypted protocol standards (HTTP/3, QUIC, DoH, ECH/ESNI).
- Experience with virtual or cloud firewall performance tuning.
- Hands-on with network traffic generation and testing tools (Spirent, IXIA, TRex).
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SonicWall is an equal opportunity employer.
We are committed to creating a diverse environment and are an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, age, marital status, veteran status, pregnancy, or any other basis prohibited by applicable law.
At SonicWall, we pride ourselves on recruiting a diverse mix of talented people and providing active security solutions in 100+ countries.
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Skills Required
- 10+ years of C/C++ experience in high-performance networking, packet processing, or L7 security engines on NGFW or carrier-grade platforms
- Strong expertise in SSL/TLS internals, including TLS 1.2/1.3, PKI, certificate management, and OpenSSL/BoringSSL
- Hands-on experience building or optimizing DPI or security service engines such as antivirus, IPS, content filtering, or application control on commercial NGFW platforms
- Proficiency in multi-core, low-latency C/C++ programming, including concurrency, memory optimization, and zero-copy techniques
- Strong debugging and profiling skills across complex, multi-threaded networking environments
- Familiarity with NGFW security services from leading industry vendors
- Exposure to modern encrypted protocol standards, including HTTP/3, QUIC, DoH, and ECH/ESNI
- Experience with virtual or cloud firewall performance tuning
- Hands-on experience with network traffic generation and testing tools such as Spirent, IXIA, or TRex
SonicWall Compensation & Benefits Highlights
The following summarizes recurring compensation and benefits themes identified from responses generated by popular LLMs to common candidate questions about SonicWall and has not been reviewed or approved by SonicWall.
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Healthcare Strength — Health, dental, vision, mental-health support, and wellness programs are part of the package. Feedback suggests coverage breadth is a dependable component of total rewards.
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Leave & Time Off Breadth — Generous PTO, paid holidays and sick time, and bereavement leave are described alongside flexible or remote options. Feedback suggests ample time away meaningfully supports balance.
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Retirement Support — A 401(k) and core financial protections such as life and disability insurance are included. Feedback suggests these fundamentals meet standard expectations for many.
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What We Do
SonicWall has been fighting the cyber-criminal industry for over 25 years defending small, medium-size businesses and enterprises worldwide. Backed by research from the Global Response Intelligent Defense (GRID) Threat Network, our award-winning real-time breach detection and prevention solutions, coupled with the formidable resources of over 10,000 loyal channel partners around the globe, are the backbone securing more than a million business and mobile networks and their emails, applications and data. This combination of products and partners has enabled a real-time cyber defense solution tuned to the specific needs of the more than 500,000 global businesses in more than 215 countries and territories.
