Consulting Systems Engineer -FortiGate/SASE

Fortinet are looking for people to join the Consulting Systems Engineering (CSE) FortiGate/SASE Enterprise team which is based in Sophia Antipolis, France. We need people with a deep knowledge and enjoyment of networking and security technologies - but who can also communicate and share that enjoyment with others. If you are based within commuting distance of the Sophia Antipolis office, South of France (or wish to relocate here) - that’s great. However suitable candidates who want to be based remotely from the office are also welcome to apply.

Your current role may be pre-sales, post-sales, R&D – it’s not what matters to us. What we need to see are your strong technical skills and your ability to share them with others. The role is that of Consulting Systems Engineer.

So, what does a CSE in the FortiGate/SASE Team do? Sales staff in the field involve us to help them with the most challenging and demanding projects. We provide design assistance, architectural and technical advice, and product insight. We carry out extensive lab testing of solutions, often optimising for performance or to meet pre-defined performance goals.

How do we test the solutions? "Hands On" in our superbly equipped lab in Sophia Antipolis, France. Market-leading traffic generators and security testing tools. Equipment from third-party vendors for integration work. The results of our activities (which may be days or often weeks of effort) then need to be delivered, typically to senior technical people within a customer organisation.

So how do we deliver results? Written documents - long test reports or short technical summaries, depending on what is required. Face to face meetings. Remotely hosted meetings over the Internet.

While lab testing and delivering the results is still the key element of our work, we also find ourselves:

• Giving general technical assistance to the Sales Teams.
• Helping with a field-based remote Proof of Concept (POC) activity.
• Running and delivery of POCs in the Sophia Antipolis office.
• Providing input to RFP responses.
• Writing New Feature Requests and working with Engineering to implement them.
• Delivering technical seminars and training - to both internal and external participants.
• Provide design expertise and assistance to the field.

The role of CSE is wide-ranging. It is a very technical job - a great mix of networking, security but also human interaction.

Skills required

Top networking knowledge is necessary. Detailed, and wide, network knowledge is mandatory. Some examples (but a far from exhaustive list):

• IPv4, IPv6, TCP, UDP
• L2 switching
• Routing protocols (OSPF, BGP, ...)
• VPN and related: IPsec, SSL/TLS

Those would be a typical, but not exhaustive, set of abilities - if you have more, so much the better. Expertise in any of these wider areas is valuable to us:

• Network Security
• Secure SD-WAN
• SASE (or elements thereof – FWaaS, SWG, CASB, ZTNA, etc.)
• Public and Private Cloud: Azure, AWS, GCP, OpenStack, etc.

Security skills: If you have them, they might include:

• IPS
• Anti-virus
• Web filtering
• Application control
• SSL/TLS "Deep Inspection"

Product skills? Well, obviously, FortiGate knowledge is a big plus, but we are flexible on that for the right candidate. Knowledge of competitors' products therefore also a plus.

You must have the motivation and ability to work independently day to day - but rest assured we are a real team - we work together and help and support each other all the time. Within the pre-Sales process, we are a point of technical excellence and need to communicate back into the field with our results and advice.

So, proficiency in:

• Presentation
• Technical writing
• Talking!

These are a big plus, but, most of all, you need a real enthusiasm and desire to pass knowledge and information to others. If it seems that we’re keen on people who can span the range from analysing the bit-and-bytes all the way through to talking complex architectures and service offerings to an audience – then you’re right! One day in the lab reproducing complex traffic patterns, the next day talking SASE services with the Sales Team.... We need to be masters of all of it. If that’s you – talk to us.