Distinguished Engineer - AI-First Transformation

Palo Alto Networks • Office - USA - CA - Headquarters, CA

10d • $266,200 - $365,400 • Hybrid

About The Position

We are seeking a visionary Distinguished Engineer to drive our AI-First Transformation, bridging the gap between AI technology and business impact. You will re-imagine how our enterprise operates by rewriting operational workflows to drive efficiency, personalization, and speed. Your goal is to build a scalable 'AI Factory' that moves the organization from ad-hoc pilots to industrialized business value by leading the end-to-end AI lifecycle and translating ideas into tangible business outcomes.

Requirements

• Bachelor's degree with 15 years of related experience, or Master's degree with 12 years of experience, or PhD with 8 years of experience.
• Deep experience leading cross-functional teams at the intersection of Business Strategy and Technical Execution.
• Proven 'General Manager' mindset with a track record of owning the P&L or business outcome of a digital product.
• Fluency in the modern AI stack, understanding the capabilities and limitations of LLMs, RAG architectures, and Agentic workflows.

Nice To Haves

• Ability to translate complex concepts between CXOs (Business Outcomes), CIOs (Architecture/Security), and Data Scientists (Models/Weights).
• Technical fluency to design workflows that handle ambiguity and require human-in-the-loop validation.
• Demonstrated success in change management, driving technology adoption, managing automation concerns, and upskilling teams.

Responsibilities

• Define the AI transformation roadmap, ruthlessly prioritizing initiatives like autonomous agents and predictive operations to ensure a clear path to ROI.
• Oversee the data strategy, curating 'Golden Examples' from institutional history to train models on our best work and digitize our 'Enterprise Memory'.
• Re-imagine and design 'Invisible AI' workflows that seamlessly assist human experts, rather than simply digitizing existing processes.
• Establish rigorous 'Report Cards' for AI models to move from 'vibes-based' decisions to structured evaluation, measuring accuracy, latency, and business relevance before production.
• Partner with Legal, InfoSec, and Engineering to implement strict governance and safety 'Circuit Breakers,' protecting company IP and preventing data leaks or unsafe AI actions.
• Own the adoption curve and unit economics, ensuring workforce trust in AI tools and preventing model decay by maintaining a fresh knowledge base.

Benefits

• 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/com-missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive