Principal Engineer Software (Platform & Infrastructure)

Palo Alto Networks•Santa Clara, CA

11d•$200,000 - $230,000

About The Position

We are seeking a highly skilled and experienced Platform & Infrastructure Engineer to join our core infrastructure development team. In this pivotal role, you will be instrumental in designing, building, and maintaining the shared infrastructure services and platforms that our product and application teams will depend on. You will focus on creating reusable, reliable, and scalable solutions that abstract away complexity, enabling other teams to focus on their core business logic and deliver features faster in a multi-cloud environment.

Requirements

10+ years of experience in an Infrastructure Development, Platform Engineering, or Site Reliability Engineering role, with a strong focus on building tools and services for other engineers
Deep expertise with Kubernetes in production environments, particularly in providing it as a platform.
Strong programming skills in Go (Golang) and Python, with experience building robust, maintainable backend services and automation
Extensive hands-on experience with at least one major Cloud Provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure); multi-cloud experience is a strong plus, especially in building abstractions over them
Proven experience designing and implementing Event-Driven Architecture and message queuing systems (e.g., Kafka, Google Pub/Sub) as shared services
Solid understanding and practical experience with CI/CD pipeline tools (especially GitLab CI) and experience establishing automated delivery processes for other teams
Demonstrable experience designing and operating Distributed Systems, with an understanding of patterns for creating reliable, shared components
Familiarity with Multi-Region Cloud Environments and strategies for building globally distributed and highly available platform
Proficiency in establishing and utilizing comprehensive Observability and Monitoring platforms (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ELK stack, Datadog) for shared infrastructure
Strong experience with RESTful API design principles and building well-documented, consumable APIs
Knowledge of Service Mesh concepts and practical experience with solutions like Istio in a platform context
Hands-on experience with Relational Databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MySQL), ideally in managing them as a service
Excellent communication skills and the ability to clearly articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences
A strong customer-centric mindset, treating internal development teams as your primary customers.
Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience or equivalent military experience required

Nice To Haves

Experience with Infrastructure as Code (e.g., Terraform, Pulumi) for managing shared resources is a plus
Experience with developer portals or internal documentation systems is a plus
Contributions to open-source projects, especially in the infrastructure space is a plus
Experience leading design sessions and driving technical consensus among diverse team is a plus

Responsibilities

Design and build core platform components and shared infrastructure services that other development teams will integrate with and leverage to deploy and operate their applications.
Architect, implement, and manage highly available and scalable Kubernetes platforms as a service for internal consumers
Develop robust, internal-facing tools and automation for infrastructure provisioning and management primarily using Go (Golang)
Architect and optimize foundational solutions within Cloud environments (AWS, GCP, etc.), focusing on creating reusable patterns and modules for other teams
Design and implement shared Event-Driven Architecture components and messaging platforms using technologies like Kafka or Google Pub/Sub that product teams can easily utilize
Develop and maintain robust CI/CD pipelines (e.g., GitLab CI) as a service, providing standardized and automated deployment workflows for various development teams
Design and build resilient Distributed Systems components that serve as building blocks for other applications, focusing on reliability, fault tolerance, and performance
Manage and optimize our shared infrastructure across Multi-Region Cloud Environments, ensuring that platform services are globally available and performant for all consumers
Establish and enhance centralized Observability and Monitoring platforms and tools that provide self-service insights for consuming teams
Define and implement clear, well-documented RESTful API designs for the infrastructure services you build, ensuring ease of integration for internal clients
Implement and manage Service Mesh (e.g., Istio) capabilities, providing traffic management, security, and policy enforcement as a shared platform for services
Design, implement, and optimize highly available Relational Database services or shared data platforms for broad organizational use
Collaborate closely with product development teams to understand their infrastructure needs and pain points, providing technical guidance and support
Participate in on-call rotations to support the critical shared infrastructure you build