About Us
Sophos is a cybersecurity leader defending 600,000 organizations globally with an AI-driven platform and expert-led services. Sophos meets organizations wherever they are in their security maturity and grows with them to defeat cyberattacks. Its solutions combine machine learning, automation, and real-time threat intelligence with frontline human expertise from Sophos X-Ops to deliver advanced, 24/7 threat monitoring, detection, and response.
Sophos offers industry-leading managed detection and response (MDR) alongside a comprehensive portfolio of cybersecurity technologies — including endpoint, network, email, and cloud security, extended detection and response (XDR), identity threat detection and response (ITDR), and next-gen SIEM. Together with expert advisory services, these capabilities help organizations proactively reduce risk and respond faster, with the visibility and scalability needed to stay ahead of evolving threats.
Sophos goes to market with a global partner ecosystem, including Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), resellers and distributors, marketplace integrations, and cyber risk partners, giving organizations the flexibility to choose trusted relationships when securing their business. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. More information is available at www.sophos.com.
Role SummarySophos Firewall is the flagship product of Sophos, operating in the network security domain to protect customer network traffic when deployed in router or switch mode.
As part of the NSG Engineering Group, you will join the Firewall Assistant team in a senior capacity. This team focuses on leveraging AI to interpret natural language queries, deliver intelligent recommendations, and automate firewall operations while upholding enterprise-grade security and compliance standards. The team’s vision is to evolve firewall management from a complex, error-prone manual process into an intuitive, conversational experience—enabling security teams to operate with greater speed, accuracy, and confidence.
What you will do
Design, develop, and deliver production-grade backend services and scalable systems for AI-powered firewall and security management capabilities.
Build and maintain high-performance backend services and APIs primarily using Go, with a strong focus on reliability, scalability, security, and operational excellence.
Design and develop AI-assisted firewall capabilities that enable natural-language-driven security operations, intelligent automation, and improved user experiences.
Work on distributed systems, backend services, APIs, and networking components supporting enterprise-grade firewall and security solutions.
Apply strong networking fundamentals to build, troubleshoot, and optimize systems involving protocols, connectivity, traffic flows, latency, and reliability.
Integrate AI/LLM capabilities into backend products and services, including AI assistants, agent workflows, tool integrations, and automation use cases.
Collaborate with backend, AI, networking, firewall, cloud, and security engineering teams to deliver secure and scalable solutions.
Take end-to-end ownership of features and services, from design and implementation through testing, deployment, monitoring, troubleshooting, and continuous improvement.
What you will bring
7-15 years of software engineering experience, with strong experience building backend systems and distributed services.
Strong hands-on experience with Golang for developing production-grade backend services and APIs. Experience with Java and/or Python is also valuable.
Strong understanding of networking fundamentals, including TCP/IP, HTTP/HTTPS, DNS, routing, proxies, firewalls, network security, and network troubleshooting.
Experience with firewall, network security, SD-WAN, networking, or cybersecurity products is a plus.
Experience designing and building scalable backend systems, APIs, and distributed services with a strong focus on performance, reliability, security, and maintainability.
Strong foundation in computer science fundamentals, including data structures, concurrency, networking, databases, and distributed systems.
Experience with system design and end-to-end ownership of backend services, including APIs, data models, storage, caching, queuing, failure handling, scalability, and performance.
Exposure to AI/LLM technologies and experience integrating AI capabilities into software products or backend systems.
Familiarity with AI assistants, LLM APIs, agentic workflows, RAG, tool calling, MCP, or AI agent frameworks such as LangGraph, OpenAI Agents, Claude Agent SDK, or similar technologies.
Ability to write clean, testable, maintainable, and production-quality code with a focus on robust API design and operational excellence.
Experience with AWS or other cloud platforms, including cloud networking, IAM, deployment, observability, and performance optimization.
Ready to Join Us?
At Sophos, we believe in the power of diverse perspectives to fuel innovation. Research shows that candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don't check every box in a job description. We challenge that notion. Your unique experiences and skills might be exactly what we need to enhance our team. Don't let a checklist hold you back – we encourage you to apply.
What's Great About Sophos?
· Sophos operates a remote-first working model, making remote work the primary option for most employees. However, some roles may necessitate a hybrid approach. While we are a remote first organization, applicants must have legal authorization to work in the jurisdiction where the position is posted, without requiring employer sponsorship.
· Our people – we innovate and create, all of which are accompanied by a great sense of fun and team spirit
· Employee-led diversity and inclusion networks that build community and provide education and advocacy
· Annual charity and fundraising initiatives and volunteer days for employees to support local communities
· Global employee sustainability initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint
· Global fitness and trivia competitions to keep our bodies and minds sharp
· Global wellbeing days for employees to relax and recharge
· Monthly wellbeing webinars and training to support employee health and wellbeing
Our Commitment To You
We’re proud of the diverse and inclusive environment we have at Sophos, and we’re committed to ensuring equality of opportunity. We believe that diversity, combined with excellence, builds a better Sophos, so we encourage applicants who can contribute to the diversity of our team. All applicants will be treated in a fair and equal manner and in accordance with the law regardless of gender, sex, gender reassignment, marital status, race, religion or belief, color, age, military veteran status, disability, pregnancy, maternity or sexual orientation. We want to give you every opportunity to show us your best self, so if there are any adjustments we could make to the recruitment and selection process to support you, please let us know.
Data Protection
If you choose to explore an opportunity, and subsequently share your CV or other personal details with Sophos, these details will be held by Sophos for 12 months in accordance with our Privacy Policy and used by our recruitment team to contact you regarding this or other relevant opportunities at Sophos. If you would like Sophos to delete or update your details at any time, please follow the steps set out in the Privacy Policy describing your individual rights. For more information on Sophos’ data protection practices, please consult our Privacy Policy Cybersecurity as a Service Delivered | Sophos
