Principal Engineer - Security & Detections (Prisma AIRS)

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

49d•$156,400 - $253,000•Hybrid

About The Position

Palo Alto Networks is pioneering the world's most comprehensive AI security platform through Prisma AIRS—protecting complex ecosystems of AI models, applications, and agents from development through runtime. As part of this mission, we are building a brand-new initiative on the AIRS team focused on advancing state-of-the-art AI/ML infrastructure and high-performance, distributed backend systems. We are recruiting senior technical leaders to drive this architecture from the ground up across the following levels: Sr. Staff Engineer | Principal Engineer | Sr. Principal Engineer. As a Security / Detection Engineer, you will analyze multi-stage attack behavior sequences and translate complex threat patterns into highly deterministic signatures. You will own the end-to-end detection lifecycle—from rule creation to continuous false-positive (FP) tuning—ensuring our defense mechanisms are performant, accurate, and resilient against evasion.

Requirements

BS/MS in Computer Science, Cyber Security, or equivalent practical experience with 8+ years of dedicated experience in detection engineering, threat analysis, or security research.
Deep expertise in writing and optimizing signature-based patterns.
Thorough understanding of application-layer evasion techniques.
Strong knowledge of the detection-as-code philosophy and building automated testing pipelines for signature validation.
Familiarity with AI Risk & Threat signatures and OWASP frameworks (e.g., OWASP Top 10 for LLMs).
Experience with Python, Regex, or other scripting tools to automate packet capture analysis, rule creation, and parsing threat telemetry.
Solid understanding of the MITRE ATT&CK framework and translating offensive techniques into robust defensive controls.

Responsibilities

Analyze complex, multi-stage attack behavior sequences and transform them into precise, deterministic signatures.
Develop and maintain high-performance signatures that can be safely enforced by our inline engines without impacting network throughput.
Own the entire signature lifecycle, from initial research and threat modeling to deployment, automated regression testing, and deprecation.
Drive continuous False Positive (FP) tuning and validation processes to minimize alert fatigue while maximizing true positive detection rates.
Implement robust version pinning strategies and dependency management for threat prevention content updates, ensuring consistency across distributed firewall deployments.
Partner with threat research groups and inline machine learning teams to integrate behavioral signatures with automated deep learning classifiers.