Specialist , OT Security Engineering

The OT Security Engineer (Level 2) designs and delivers project-driven OT cybersecurity solutions that keep pharmaceutical manufacturing secure, reliable, and compliant. You’ll partner with site engineering/automation, operations, network services, and enterprise security to deploy scalable security patterns globally—balancing safety, GxP /GMP quality, availability, and risk reduction—and designing for both existing legacy infrastructure and greenfield deployments.

The role focuses on security-by-design for OT: Purdue-aligned segmentation, secure remote access, visibility/monitoring, and OT vulnerability management, delivered through repeatable reference architectures, standards, and implementation playbooks across multiple sites

Provide IT and OT security expertise , with a focus on building and sustaining a secure manufacturing and laboratory environment.

Collaborate with product owners, business stakeholders, and IT Risk Management/Security to identify and assess cyber risks to OT systems, and design and implement effective mitigation strategies.

Review and provide input shop-floor and lab-floor firewall rules, balancing usability, operational requirements, and security.

Create, review, and approve IT infrastructure designs supporting new OT projects, ensuring alignment with OT security standards and architectural principles.

Educate technical teams on OT complexities, ensuring they understand how OT differs from traditional IT and can address the unique constraints and requirements of OT environments.

Prepare and deliver project briefings, communicating complex technical topics clearly and effectively to both technical and non-technical audiences.

Minimum Education Requirement: Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science , Engineering, or a related field.

Global collaboration: This role will work closely with colleagues across the U.S. East Coast, Dublin (Ireland), Prague (Czech Republic), and Singapore technology centers .

Experience: 3+ years of relevant professional experience.

OT/IT security background: Experience designing and operating IT/OT cybersecurity controls for critical infrastructure systems.

Firewall governance: Experience reviewing and approving firewall rules, with a strong understanding of the security risks associated with data flows across segmented network zones.

Shop floor / lab systems design review: Experience reviewing real-time shop floor and laboratory system designs to ensure data flows meet appropriate security and resiliency requirements.

Experience designing or supporting IT and OT systems for manufacturing and laboratory environments in the following domains: Firewalls, Remote Access Management, Network security design & observability

Execution mindset: Results-oriented, with a demonstrated ability to develop plans and execute them successfully.

We are known as Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, New Jersey, USA in the United States and Canada and MSD everywhere else. For more than a century, we have been bringing forward medicines and vaccines for many of the world's most challenging diseases. Today, our company continues to be at the forefront of research to deliver innovative health solutions and advance the prevention and treatment of diseases that threaten people and animals around the world.

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