Principal Software Engineer ( Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Engineering )

Palo Alto Networks

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

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 Your Career At Palo Alto Networks, Secure Cloud and AI infrastructure is the foundation of our mission to protect the digital future. We're seeking a world-class Principal Engineer (Sr Manager-equivalent) to lead the evolution of AI-driven tools within our Cloud Infrastructure and Platform Engineering (CIPE) organization. You will be the key architect of our strategy to embed intelligence into every stage of the developer lifecycle—from ideation and documentation to coding, testing, deployment, and observability. Your work will directly accelerate developer velocity, elevate our standards for software quality, and unlock new business opportunities by enabling the rapid integration of agentic AI into our products. This role carries executive-level visibility and the autonomy to solve our most complex engineering challenges. If you are a recognized expert in developer platforms and are passionate about leveraging AI to redefine engineering efficiency at a global scale, we want to hear from you. This role is located at our dynamic Santa Clara California headquarters campus, and in office 3 days a week.

Requirements

BS, MS, or PhD in Computer Science or a related technical field, or equivalent experience.
9+ years of relevant software engineering experience, with a proven track record of technical leadership and innovation.
Demonstrated experience defining and leading large-scale, cross-organizational technical initiatives from concept to completion.
Experience building and scaling platforms that serve thousands of engineers in complex environments.
Strong foundation in application and infrastructure security, including secrets management, supply chain security, and secure-by-default platform design.
Recognized expertise in developer platforms, cloud-native infrastructure, container orchestration technologies (e.g Kubernetes) and CI/CD.
Deep proficiency with a major cloud platform (GCP preferred), including IAM, managed databases, networking, and Workload Identity.
Experience designing and maintaining Infrastructure as Code (e.g. Terraform) at scale, including module architecture and state management.
Expertise in authentication/authorization systems: OAuth 2.0, OIDC, token lifecycle management, and zero-trust patterns.
Hands-on experience applying AI/ML/GenAI to solve complex software engineering problems.
Experience influencing and aligning senior leadership (Director, VP level) on technical strategy and roadmaps.

Nice To Haves

Deep expertise in leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs) and other generative AI techniques to build intelligent developer tools.
Experience building and operating observability stacks (metrics, logging, alerting) for distributed systems.
A history of significant contributions to the open-source community, publications in top-tier conferences, or patents in relevant fields.

Responsibilities

Define the Vision: Architect and own the technical roadmap for AI-enhanced developer tools and infrastructure in CIPE at Palo Alto Networks.
Evaluate and Execute Solutions: Lead the design and implementation of novel systems that leverage Large Language Models (LLMs), static/dynamic analysis, and machine learning to create a world-class, intelligent developer experience.
Drive Organization-Wide Impact: You are a builder, so you won't just stop at ideation. Beyond concepts, ensure your builds show step-change improvements in key engineering metrics like including code velocity, review cycle time, test effectiveness, incident reduction, and overall feature launches.
Lead Cross-Functional Initiatives: Spearhead complex, cross-functional projects that require influencing and aligning multiple engineering organizations and their leadership.
Enable Secure Innovation: Develop foundational AI platforms that empower teams to prototype, deploy, and scale threat-intelligent cloud features, embedding Palo Alto Networks' security natively.
Serve as Technical Authority: Act as the go-to expert on AI-augmented cloud platforms, mentoring senior engineers and infusing industry-leading practices into our high-stakes ecosystem.
Innovate at Enterprise Scale: Address intricate challenges in multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP, and OCI) supporting thousands of microservices, secure workloads, and global threat detection pipelines.