Senior/Principal Engineer Software - Platform Backend (Cortex)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we're united by a shared mission-to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you're ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you're in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us!

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.

Job Summary

Job Summary

As a Principal Software Engineer on the Cortex Platform team, you will be part of a group with the mentality and independence of a startup, backed by the power of a successful corporation. You will be instrumental in designing and building a massive-scale infrastructure that supports billions of events per second. Your work will involve storing, processing, and visualizing data to collaborate with the industry's leading cyber products and deliver unparalleled security insights.

Key Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end software development lifecycle, from requirement analysis and design through to development, deployment, and ongoing support.
• Architect, design, and develop highly scalable, distributed backend services capable of processing billions of events per second.
• Proactively collaborate and exchange information with cross-functional teams, including product management and other engineering groups, to ensure alignment on goals and deliverables.
• Drive technical innovation by proposing and implementing new ideas and initiatives, transforming concepts into tangible product features.
• Ensure high standards of code quality, performance, and reliability through rigorous code reviews, automated testing, and proactive system monitoring.
• Mentor and empower other engineers on the team, sharing knowledge of best practices in software design and cloud technologies.

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience.
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Proven experience building and operating distributed, large-scale cloud products.
• Experience in designing, building, and maintaining scalable server-side applications.
• Experience with a variety of database technologies such as MySQL, Cassandra, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, or Elasticsearch.

• Experience with writing and maintaining CI/CD pipelines.
• Proficiency in Go and/or Python programming languages.
• Hands-on experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).
• Experience with containerization technologies such as Kubernetes and Docker.
• Knowledge of the cybersecurity domain and related challenges.