Reference Solution Engineer — Telco & MSSP (Consulting Systems Engineering team)

Reference Solution Engineer — Telco & MSSP

Location: Flexible / Remote (EMEA)

Team: CSE Solutions Telco & MSSP EMEA — Validation & Lab Circle

About the role:

Our CSE Solutions team builds and validates the reference architectures that Fortinet's largest service provider and MSSP customers deploy in production. We don't just write slideware — we build, test, and ship Reference Solution Stacks (RSS) as executable artifacts, with validation pipelines that prove they work at carrier scale.

We're looking for an engineer who treats validation as a first-class discipline: someone who can stand up a multi-vendor topology, push it to its limits, and turn the results into evidence the field can sell on.

What you'll do:

Design and execute validation campaigns for Telco and MSSP reference architectures, with a focus on CGNAT, SecGW, SD-WAN, uniSASE, and large-scale firewalling

Build performance and scalability test plans using tools like Spirent, Ixia/Keysight and FortiTester

Contribute to Reference Solution Stack (RSS) — your validation work is the artifact's release gate

Automate test execution and reporting through CI pipelines so results are reproducible, not one-off heroics

Work directly with field SEs on customer-driven validation requests, turning real opportunities into reusable evidence

Feed findings back into Product Management and Engineering to shape what gets built next

Produce clear technical documentation, live demos and Proof of concepts, and customer-facing reports

What we need:

Strong networking foundation: routing, switching, IPsec, BGP, QoS, and security fundamentals

Hands-on experience in service provider, large enterprise, or MSSP environments — production scale, not just lab toys

Solid Linux, scripting (Python or Bash), and comfort with virtualization (KVM, OpenShift and Hyperscalers)

Sharp troubleshooting instincts across multi-layer, multi-vendor systems

Ability to drive your own work — we run on consent-based governance, not micromanagement.

The Validation & Lab Team has flat decision-making, clear role accountabilities, and high autonomy over your domain. If that sounds refreshing, you'll fit. If you want a top-down hierarchy, you won't.

Bonus points for:

Traffic generator experience (Spirent / Ixia / FortiTester)

CI/CD for infrastructure: GitLab CI, Jenkins, pipeline-driven testing

Telco protocol depth: GTP, Diameter, 5G core, carrier-grade NAT

Experience writing Infrastructure-as-Code (Terraform, Ansible) or treating documentation as code

Why this role:

You'll work on the reference architectures that show up in the largest service provider RFPs in EMEA

Your validation results directly drive multi-million-euro deals — your work is visible and consequential

You'll help shape how Fortinet productises validation as code, not as a deliverable

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