Suricata Security Engineer

GuidePoint Security provides trusted cybersecurity expertise, solutions and services that help organizations make better decisions and minimize risk. By taking a three-tiered, holistic approach for evaluating security posture and ecosystems, GuidePoint enables some of the nation’s top organizations, such as Fortune 500 companies and U.S. government agencies, to identify threats, optimize resources and integrate best-fit solutions that mitigate risk.

An active Top Secret / SCI clearance with the willingness to take and pass a polygraph exam is required for consideration for hire for this role. Work is to be performed 100% onsite with our Government Customer

We are seeking an experienced Suricata Engineer to join our cybersecurity team. The ideal candidate will possess deep technical expertise in Suricata, particularly in understanding and managing its YAML configuration files, and how these configurations integrate and influence the Suricata Intrusion Detection Systems/Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS). You will play a critical role in deploying, tuning, and maintaining Suricata within a complex enterprise IT environment, primarily running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

A key focus of this role will be tuning Suricata to operate optimally with Napatech network interface cards (NICs), ensuring high-performance packet capture and processing while minimizing packet loss and system resource overhead.

Work with us as we secure and protect our nation's most sensitive capabilities.

What You’ll Work On

• Designing, deploying, and maintaining Suricata IDS/IPS systems across enterprise networks.
• Developing, reviewing, and optimizing Suricata YAML configuration files to ensure optimal detection capabilities and minimal false positives.
• Understanding and managing the interaction between Suricata’s YAML configuration and its runtime engine, including rule loading, protocol decoding, and logging.
• Tuning Suricata for optimal performance with Napatech NICs, including configuring Direct Memory Access (DMA), RSS queues, interrupt coalescing, and leveraging any NIC-specific acceleration features.
• Collaborating with security teams to integrate Suricata with SIEM and other security monitoring platforms.
• Troubleshooting installation and operational issues specific to Suricata on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, addressing compatibility, kernel module requirements, SELinux policies, and performance tuning.
• Identifying and mitigating common pitfalls encountered when deploying Suricata in large-scale enterprise environments, including package dependencies, system resource constraints, and NIC driver/configuration issues.
• Provide detailed documentation and runbooks for Suricata configuration, tuning  NICs, and deployment processes.
• Staying current with Suricata releases, NIC driver updates, and community best practices for network interface tuning and IDS/IPS performance enhancement.

Required Skills

• Proven experience working with Suricata IDS/IPS systems, including hands-on management of its YAML configuration files.
• Strong knowledge of the Suricata configuration structure, syntax, and how it controls detection rules, logging, and output modules.
• Extensive experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems, including package management (yum/dnf), kernel module management, SELinux configuration, and system optimization.
• Hands-on experience tuning Suricata for high-performance packet capture with Napatech NICs or similar advanced network interface cards.
• Familiarity with NIC-specific features such as DMA, Receive Side Scaling (RSS), interrupt moderation, and offload capabilities, and how to configure them for Suricata.
• Experience troubleshooting Suricata’s interaction with NIC drivers and kernel modules in an enterprise environment.
• Experience with scripting languages (Bash, Python) to automate Suricata configuration and deployment tasks.
• TS/SCI clearance with the ability to obtain a counter-intelligence polygraph.
• Associate’s degree and 5+ years of experience supporting IT projects and activities or Bachelor’s degree and 3+ years of experience supporting IT projects and activities or Master’s degree and 1+ years of experience supporting IT projects and activities. Years of experience may be accepted in lieu of degree.
• DoD 8570 IAT Level II Certification, including Security+ CE, CCNA-Security, GSEC, SSCP, CySA+, GICSP, or CND Certification.
• Ability to obtain a DoD 8570 Cybersecurity Service Provider - Infrastructure Support Certification, including CEH, CySA+, GICSP, SSCP, CHFI, CFR, Cloud+, or CND Certification, within 60 days of start date.

Preferred Skills

• Proficient understanding of network proto