Thomas Akpa
Senior Technical Consulting Engineer | Security
Salary / Daily rate
Kraków, Poland
Freelance
Remote only
Skills
Languages
About me
Intro
Cybersecurity expert & CCIE-certified engineer with 8+ years in network security and firewall technologies. Led teams, trained 1000+ students, achieved 100% certification pass rates, and expanded Cisco academies by 30%. Specialized in Cisco/Palo Alto firewalls, VPN solutions, and enterprise security consulting.
Work experience
Cisco
Jul 2022 - Present
4 years 4 months
Kraków, Poland
CMS Technical Consulting Engineer - Security
May 2024 - Present
2 years 6 months
Kraków, Poland
Technical Consulting Engineer
Jul 2022 - May 2024
1 year 11 months
Kraków, Poland
iOPEX Technologies
Nov 2020 - Jul 2022
1 year 9 months
Krakow Metropolitan Area
Technical Lead - Paloalto Networks
Nov 2021 - Jul 2022
9 months
Krakow Metropolitan Area
Overall aim of role: - To enable the engineers technically and mentor them to adopt best practices for self-learning. - To ensure the best case handling practices are enforced for engineers to succeed in achieving targeted KPIs such as CSAT and providing quality updates to our customers. - To maintain high Tier-3 escalation quality. Perform escalation audits for all cases escalated to Tier-3 and enable Engineers to succeed in exhausting all the troubleshooting steps taken. - To cultivate the bench strength of engineers who will be future leaders. - To periodically identify the promising candidates for advanced TAC training modules. - Backlog management of the respective team to ensure stagnant and aging cases get appropriate help. - Suggesting process improvements to the Leadership team. - Validate and approve Tier-2 to Tier-3 escalation template. - Validate the accuracy and necessity of an RMA request - Validate the Steps and Necessity of a root access template.
Technical Support Engineer - Paloalto Networks
Nov 2020 - Dec 2021
1 year 2 months
Kraków, Poland
- Strong experience in Configuration and troubleshooting of Security firewalls and VPN devices - Work as an experience resource and assist cross teams in resolving complex and critical issues. - Provided Technical assistance to customer with break/fix issues. - Proactively follow up on customer issues and provide recommendation. - Perform Lab repro and testing for customer issues. - Provide on call, email, remote assistance to global customers. - Use diagnostic tools to troubleshoot complex Network issues. - Work within defined SLA’s customer issues and provide resolution in timely manner.
Cisco Instructor
American University of Nigeria
Nov 2015 - Jan 2020
4 years 3 months
Yola, Adamawa, Nigeria
Overall aim of role: - Management of the Cisco academy to enable support and maintain other academies. - Ensure growth and consistent engagement with ACIT (African Center for ICT Innovation and Training) academies by submitting detailed monthly report of activities of the academies that indicates growth and engagements. - Rollout of other academy courses by the end of the Fiscal Year. - Increase the number of enrollments for various courses in the academy: Results: - Became first Instructor trainer in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) for CCNA Cyber Ops (Dec. 2017). - Planned and executed the first IoT Hackaton Event in the North East of Nigeria. - Planned and executed the First Pilot Remote Instructor Training in Nigeria - Expanded the Cisco Academy from 24 academies to 29 and still counting, thereby bringing learning and impact to over 1000 students. - Organized workshops, open day events and visitations to potential academies. - Introduced more collaborative means in communications with supported academies like usage of Cisco Webex, Cisco Spark and Whatsapp group. - Ensured ACIT academies are up to date, delivered instructor training and maintained instructor role for the academies by constant up to date re-tooling sessions. - 30% growth in academy programs. - Upgraded lab facilities in ACIT. - Certified ACIT as an ITC (Instructor Training Center) for CCNP R&S, IoT Fundamental Connecting Things and CCNA Cyber-Ops. - Average of 4.5 in a scale of 5.0 students’ quality of instruction feedback. - Ensured we were among the first academies to upgrade and adopt the latest Cisco academy curriculum for teaching, from 5.0 to 6.0 in both IT Essentials, CCNA and 1.1 to 2.0 in CCNA Security. - 100% pass rate achieved for those that sat for certifications.
Education
The Silesian University of Technology
Master of Science - MS
2020 - 2021
2 years
University of Benin
Bachelor of Science (BSc) (Hons)
2008 - 2012
5 years