Director, Software Engineering - Network OR Security Background - 15+ yrs

SonicWall is a cybersecurity forerunner with more than 30 years of expertise and is recognized as a leading partner-first company, ensuring our partners and their customers are never alone in the fight against cybercrime. With the ability to build, scale and manage security across the cloud, hybrid and traditional environments in real-time, SonicWall provides relentless security against the most evasive cyberattacks across endless exposure points for increasingly remote, mobile and cloud-enabled users. With its own threat research center, SonicWall can quickly and economically provide purpose-built security solutions to enable any organization—enterprise, government agencies and SMBs—around the world. For more information, visit www.sonicwall.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram.

Role Overview:

We are seeking a Director of Engineering to lead the end-to-end development of our next-generation Firewall and Network Security Platform. The ideal candidate will combine deep technical understanding of networking, security, and systems software with proven experience in building and scaling high-performance engineering teams.

You will provide technical direction, organizational leadership, and execution discipline to an engineering organization that includes architects, managers, and developers across multiple subsystems — data plane, control plane, policy engine, management console, and APIs.

Key Responsibilities:

• Define and execute the engineering roadmap for the firewall product in collaboration with Product Management and Architecture teams.
• Translate product vision into clear technical objectives, milestones, and execution plans.
• Build and scale a high-performance team, fostering collaboration and accountability.
• Drive architectural coherence and ensure long-term scalability and performance of the platform.
• Establish strong engineering processes — planning, estimation, reviews, and quality metrics.
• Monitor KPIs for delivery predictability, code quality, and system performance.
• Collaborate with QA and DevOps leaders to ensure high release velocity without compromising stability.
• Conduct regular 1:1s, performance reviews, and growth planning for the team
• Ensure cross-functional collaboration across architecture, product management, and customer support.

Required Skills & Experience

• 15+ years in software development and 5+ years in engineering leadership
• Strong understanding of network security concepts (TCP/IP, IPsec, VPN, routing, NAT, DPI, etc.).
• Deep experience in networking and systems-level development.
• Experience with scalable, distributed systems and control/management plane architectures.
• Familiarity with DPDK, Netfilter, or similar packet processing frameworks is a plus.
• Proven track record of shipping complex infrastructure or security products.
• Experience managing multiple parallel workstreams and balancing technical debt vs. feature delivery.
• Excellent communication and cross-functional collaboration skills.

Why SonicWall? 

• Global Cybersecurity Impact – Protect over 1M+ networks and 500K+ organizations worldwide.
• Innovation & Learning – Access Udemy Business, virtual labs, and threat research deep dives to keep growing.
• Collaborative Culture – Work with global teams of engineers and researchers solving real security challenges.
• Ownership & Purpose – Your ideas drive change and make the digital world more secure.

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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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