Senior Performance Engineer - Agent (Cortex XDR)

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 believe collaboration thrives in person. That's why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it's needed. This model supports real-time problem-solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Your Career

Are you a highly technical individual with a passion for performance engineering? Join our innovative Cortex XDR Agent Performance team as a Senior Performance Engineer!

• Design, build, and maintain sophisticated Python-based automation frameworks that orchestrate performance tests across diverse endpoint environments (Windows, Linux, macOS, and Kubernetes nodes). Your frameworks will need to simulate complex user behaviors and system stress scenarios.
• Move beyond manual analysis of disparate logs. Proactively leverage AI-driven analytics and GenAI tools to summarize complex, cross-OS performance data, detect anomalies in resource usage trends, and accelerate root cause analysis of hard-to-reproduce issues.

• Go beyond high-level metrics. Take a hands-on approach to diagnosing complex agent performance issues (e.g., memory leaks, high CPU context switching, I/O blocking, or boot time impact). You will use native OS profiling tools to pinpoint bottlenecks at the process or kernel level.

• 5+ years of experience in performance engineering, with a strong emphasis on endpoint software, system-level testing, or embedded systems rather than just web-application load testing.
• Highly proficient in Python, capable of moving beyond simple scripting to architect maintainable, production-grade software. You have a strong portfolio of building automation systems that interact with OS-level APIs and manage external processes.
• Experience in designing and maintaining CI pipelines (e.g. Jenkins) to automate testing and deployment of complex system-level tools.
• Strong understanding of operating system concepts (processes, threads, memory management, file systems, networking stack) across at least two major platforms (Windows / Mac / Linux). Kubernetes is a must.
• A proven track record of adopting new technologies to work smarter. Specifically, experience leveraging AI/LLM tools within your engineering workflow - for example, using AI to analyze massive system logs, generate test cases based on feature specs, or optimize Python code.
• System Profiling Tooling: Hands-on experience with OS-specific performance and debugging tools
• Deep experience with monitoring stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, etc.)
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills in both Hebrew and English, with the ability to explain complex technical data to varied audiences.
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment and as a collaborative part of a team.