Akamai Security Engineer

As part of the under-Network Security Department, the Web Application Security team is responsible for deploying

and maintaining the Firms internet facing web application security controls. The technology and solution stack spans

all internet facing web applications of the Institutional Security and Wealth Management Businesses. It consists of

home-grown software, 3rd party software, open-source products, appliances, and auxiliary services and solutions.

An Akamai Resident Engineer will be responsible for onboarding applications to Akamai, tuning and operating WAF

protections, troubleshooting production issues, reviewing security events, supporting AI/API security initiatives,

coordinating quarterly security improvements, and acting as the technical bridge between Akamai and internal

application teams.

Morgan Stanley anticipates the need for one (1) Akamai Resident Engineer and one (1) backup resource, with a

maximum of two resources proposed.

Consultant’s responsibilities under this Task Order will include:

1. WAF Onboarding and Application Migration

• Lead onboarding internet-facing applications to Akamai WAF.

• Work with applications, DNS, load balancer, proxy, firewall, and QA teams to migrate applications into

monitor/alert mode and ultimately deny mode.

• Coordinate testing, rollout plans, traffic cutovers, validation, and rollback procedures.

2. WAF Policy Tuning and False Positive Analysis

• Analyze production traffic and WAF events to identify false positives.

• Tune security policies to reduce business impact while maintaining strong protection.

• Review blocked requests, investigate application behavior, and create narrowly scoped exceptions when

justified.

3. AI, LLM, and API Security Support

• Troubleshoot AI- and LLM-related traffic that triggers WAF protections such as SQL injection controls.

• Work with application teams and vendors to design compensating controls, header-based attestation

mechanisms, and API-specific protections.

• Evaluate emerging Akamai AI security capabilities such as AI-powered detections, Firewall for AI, bot

identification, and agentic AI protections.

4. Security Event Monitoring and Threat Analysis

• Review WAF, Bot Manager, DDoS, Client Reputation, and API Security events.

• Analyze attack patterns and determine whether activity is malicious or legitimate.

• Recommend policy improvements and mitigations based on observed threats.

5. Quarterly Security Reviews and Platform Upgrades

• Conduct structured reviews of applications protected by Akamai.

• Evaluate opportunities to move applications from monitoring to mitigation mode.

• Perform quarterly WAF upgrades, policy reviews, and security-control tuning to keep protections aligned

with current threat intelligence.

6. Incident Response and Troubleshooting

• Assist with production incidents where application behavior changes after WAF enablement.

• Investigate latency issues, traffic-routing problems, load-balancer interactions, client IP handling, surge

queue events, and application outages.

• Coordinate with Akamai engineering resources and internal teams to identify root causes and corrective

actions

7. Security Architecture and Design Consulting

• Advise application teams on secure web architectures, OWASP protections, API security, bot mitigation,

client reputation controls, and DDoS protection.

• Provide guidance on best practices for onboarding, secure application design, and remediation of web

vulnerabilities

8. Program Management and Stakeholder Engagement

• Partner with application owners, infrastructure teams, auditors, risk managers, and security leadership.

• Track onboarding progress, risks, dependencies, and remediation activities through program governance

and ticketing systems.

• Present status updates, metrics, risks, and remediation plans to senior management

9. Operational Metrics and Reporting

• Produce dashboards and reporting covering WAF adoption, deny-mode coverage, bot mitigation

effectiveness, API discovery, security exceptions, and attack activity.

• Measure onboarding progress, control effectiveness, and risk reduction across the organization.

10. Vendor Liaison and Technology Roadmap Guidance

• Act as the primary interface between the enterprise and Akamai.

• Engage Akamai product teams on product defects, enhancement requests, AI roadmap discussions, policy

recommendations, and complex troubleshooting.

• Evaluate new Akamai capabilities and coordinate pilot deployments where appropriate.

Mandatory Experience

• 5+ years of Akamai experience

• Akamai Kona Site Defender

• Akamai Bot Manager

• Akamai API Security

• OWASP Top 10

• Incident response experience

Preferred Experience

• AI/LLM security

• Akamai Firewall for AI

• Enterprise-scale migration experience

• Financial services experience