Network Engineer

Cisco Secure Network Analytics Consultant

Cambridge (Hybrid) | £400-£440 per day | Inside IR35 | 12-Month Contract

We are seeking an experienced Cisco Secure Network Analytics (SNA) Consultant to support a major network visibility and security analytics improvement programme for a leading global technology organisation.

This is an exciting opportunity for a specialist with strong Cisco SNA, NetFlow and network security analytics experience to lead the redesign, implementation and optimisation of a global monitoring environment.

You will play a key role in improving network traffic visibility, strengthening security analytics and developing a scalable, resilient architecture across a complex global network.

The Role

You will take ownership of assessing and enhancing the existing Cisco Secure Network Analytics environment, delivering a replacement platform and developing a strategy to expand NetFlow and syslog coverage across the global network.

A particular focus will be improving east-west traffic visibility across campus, data centre and cloud environments.

Key Responsibilities

• Cisco SNA Architecture & Implementation
  • Assess the existing Cisco SNA architecture, configurations, integrations and telemetry collection.
  • Design and deploy a replacement Cisco SNA infrastructure using procured hardware and software.
  • Configure and optimise Flow Managers, Flow Collectors and UDP Directors.
  • Migrate existing configurations and data sources, ensuring platform functionality and resilience.
  • Evaluate load-balancing and high-availability solutions, including HAProxy and alternative technologies.
• Network Visibility & Telemetry
  • Review existing global NetFlow and syslog coverage, identifying gaps and opportunities for improvement.
  • Develop strategies to improve network traffic visibility, particularly east-west traffic flows.
  • Design scalable collection, forwarding and distribution architectures.
  • Assess telemetry coverage across campus, data centre and hybrid cloud environments.
  • Identify opportunities to automate NetFlow and syslog deployment.
• Security Analytics & Optimisation
  • Tune Cisco SNA security policies, behavioural analytics, alarms and detection thresholds.
  • Establish traffic baselines, host groups and network classifications.
  • Reduce false positives and alert fatigue while improving threat detection.
  • Optimise telemetry ingestion, data retention and overall platform performance.
  • Collaborate with Network Reliability Engineering and Security teams to develop meaningful monitoring use cases.
• Documentation & Knowledge Transfer
  • Produce architecture diagrams, technical documentation and operational procedures.
  • Deliver knowledge transfer and operational handover to internal engineering teams.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Proven experience designing, deploying and optimising Cisco Secure Network Analytics (SNA) environments.
• Strong technical knowledge of NetFlow, syslog, Flow Managers, Flow Collectors and UDP Directors.
• Experience with network traffic analytics, security monitoring and behavioural detection.
• Strong Cisco enterprise networking and network security expertise.
• Experience improving telemetry collection, network visibility and monitoring architectures.
• Ability to design scalable, resilient and highly available network analytics platforms.

Desirable Experience

• Network automation using Python, Ansible, Terraform or REST APIs.
• Automation of NetFlow and syslog configuration and deployment.
• Experience with Git and CI/CD workflows.
• HAProxy, load balancing and high-availability architectures.
• UDP traffic distribution and Flow Collector scalability.
• Hybrid cloud networking and east-west traffic monitoring.

Project Deliverables

• A comprehensive assessment of the existing Cisco SNA environment.
• A redesigned and fully operational Cisco SNA platform.
• Optimised security analytics, monitoring policies and alerting.
• Improved global NetFlow and syslog coverage.
• A strategy and roadmap for enhanced east-west traffic visibility.
• Recommendations for Flow Collector load balancing and high availability.
• Complete technical documentation and knowledge transfer.

Contract Details

• Location: Cambridge - Hybrid working
• Rate: £400-£440 per day
• IR35 Status: Inside IR35
• Contract Length: 12 months