Principal Engineer Software (Agent Security)

Company Description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.
Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

Job Description

Palo Alto Networks® SaaS Security team is looking for a seasoned and accomplished Principal Software Engineer to help scale out our security platform with a sharp focus on platform and infrastructure capabilities.  As a member of the team, you have the unique opportunity to:

• Be part of a world-class software engineering team that works on various ground-breaking cloud security service offerings

• Lead initiatives in the platform team to deliver security as a service in the public cloud by providing highly scalable, highly available, and fault-tolerant solutions

• Deliver innovative solutions that enhances the security of AI agents and agentic workflows

This role is located at our dynamic Santa Clara California headquarters campus.

Your Impact

• Lead the technology strategy for building out  world class Agentic AI security platform, influencing critical decisions on technology, architecture,integration, and reusability

• Influence and architect cloud native, distributed computing system design, data ingestion pipelines and data storage solutions.

• Research and develop Machine Learning algorithms to enable security solutions for emerging agentic AI workflows

• Lead cross-functionally with Product Management, SRE, Software, and Quality Engineering teams to deliver new security as a service offerings to the market in a timely fashion with excellent quality

• Lead and participate in all phases of the product development cycle, including requirement analysis, design, development, test, release and support

• Foster software development best practices to deliver clean, testable, maintainable, readable and scalable code

• Work closely with customer support teams to improve end-customer outcomes

• Identify innovative patentable solutions for complex problems to influence thought leadership within the organization

Qualifications

Your Experience 

• 8+ years of experience in highly technical roles in development of enterprise services, at large organizations or innovative startups

• Preferred  hands-on experience and working knowledge of security concepts - CASB Security, network security, SASE, Data exfiltration, Identity and Posture security

• 3+ years of experience building data ingestion pipelines, data lakes, and Machine Learning algorithms

• 5+ years Experience with running complex workloads on cloud-based architectures (AWS/GCP experience preferred)

• Hands-on programming experience in one or more of the following - Java, Golang, Python 

• 5+ years of experience in Spark, Kafka, Redis NoSQL databases, message queues

• Experience with backend development (Rest APIs, Databases, Serverless computing) of distributed cloud applications

• 3+ years of experience with container platforms like Docker and Kubernetes, CI/CD pipelines, observability and monitoring solution like Grafana and Prometheus

• Good understanding of public cloud design considerations and limitations in areas of microservice architectures, security, global network infrastructure, distributed systems, and load balancing

• Can-do attitude with the ability to work in a fast paced environment, and make trade-off judgements with data driven decision making.

• Strong communication and collaboration skills across various functional areas

• BS/MS in Computer Science, other engineering/technical degree or equivalent military experience required

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands on experience developing Generative AI based solutions like conversational chatbots, RAG, vertical agents, agentic workflows

• Hands-on experience working with LLM platforms like OpenAi, Gemini, Azure AI, Claude, Perplexity, etc.or open source models like Llama running on cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure, NIM, Hugging face)

• In-depth experience with exploiting OWASP LLM Top 10 vulnerabilities, OWASP Low Code No Code Top 10 vulnerabilities and OWASP NHI Top 10 vulnerabilities.

Additional Information

The Team

We define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of a challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment. 

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between:: $147,000 - $210,000 / YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

Our Commitment

We’re problem solvers that take risks and challenge cybersecurity’s status quo. It’s simple: we can’t accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at  accommodations@paloaltonetworks.com.

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?: Yes