Principal Engineer, Secure Web Gateway

Netskope•Santa Clara, CA

18h•$133,500 - $272,000

About The Position

Netskope Cloud Data Plane engineers architect and design one of the most scalable, high-performance cloud data planes in the world, processing 10+ Gbps of traffic, performing deep inspection using state-of-the-art techniques like AI/ML to detect activities and apply advanced policies like DLP, Threat and UEBA protection, all at line rate. In this role you will be a key member of the NG-SWG team supporting our in-line Secure Web Gateway (SWG) products, which have been recognized by Gartner as market leaders in their Magic Quadrant reports: Gartner 2026 SSE Magic Quadrant Gartner 2026 SASE Magic Quadrant

Requirements

18+ years of overall experience, including 10+ years of experience building high-performance networking software and cloud services.
Expertise in building high throughput and low latency data systems, such as networking from Layer 3 to Layer 7, web proxy, security, monitoring and observability, web and mobile applications, data processing, etc.
Expertise in dealing with complex architectural problems across multiple products and at the same time handling design issues at module level.
Programming mastery in key programming languages (C/C++ or python), and ability to review code in these and other popular programming languages.
Strong understanding of computer architecture – multi-threading, CPU scheduling, memory management with practical knowledge of Linux at system/kernel level
A strong understanding of available AI tools / models and the ability to effectively apply them to your projects and workflows.
Hands-on experience handling complex and ambiguous customer issues. Persistence in accomplishing objectives despite uncertain situations, obstacles, and setbacks.
Strong communication skills and the ability to position views and arguments appropriately to win support. The ability to negotiate skillfully in tough situations in order to win concessions without damaging relationships, and to respond effectively to the reactions and positions of others.
Confidence under pressure, a mature EQ, and the ability to show a high degree of self control while maintaining a positive attitude despite adversity.
Willingness to work with a globally distributed team in different time zones.
The ability to represent the company in appropriate external forums and industry events promoting thought technical leadership.

Nice To Haves

Strong analytical and troubleshooting skills using debuggers like gdb and tools like Valgrind
Proponent of TDD a big plus, knowledge of various unit testing frameworks

Responsibilities

Setting and driving the overall architectural design and strategic technical directions for the SWG team
Understanding requirement specs and designing and implementing high-quality features that ensure reliability, sustainability, scalability and observability for data plane
Working with Product Management to understand customer requirements and provide architectural guidance.
Providing technical leadership by sharing and adapting industry leading practices for the benefit of the company.
Build scalable and performant services that inspect various network protocols, such as HTTP/HTTPS, at line rate using advanced data structures and algorithms in C, C++, Python. For example, analyze content in real-time to provide security and perform deep inspection of traffic in near real time
Integrating with other features like DLP and Threat protection
Building sophisticated key management algorithms
Redefining the Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) across multiple domains using advanced AI tooling
Leading and transforming the entire engineering organization into an AI-native, agent-first development culture, fundamentally changing how software is built.