What your job posting is getting wrong
If you're hiring a firewall engineer right now — read this first.
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By Mrugesh Patel, Senior Network Security Engineer
Originally posted on LinkedIn — Leader Series · 2026-05-07
If you’re hiring a firewall engineer right now — read this first.
Most job postings list certifications. Firewall platforms. Years of experience.
And they miss the single most important thing.
Does this person actually understand networking?
A firewall doesn’t exist in isolation. It sits inside a network — routers, switches, VLANs, routing tables.
When something breaks at 2am? The engineer who only knows firewall features will be guessing. The engineer who understands the full network path will find it in minutes.
Hiring a firewall engineer who skipped networking is like hiring a surgeon who skipped anatomy.
One interview question that reveals everything:
“Walk me through what happens to a packet from the moment a user clicks a link — before it reaches your firewall.”
The answer tells you more than any certification.
Are you testing for firewall knowledge — or network understanding?
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