Senior Director Engineering, Prisma AIRS

Palo Alto Networks • Santa Clara, CA

42d • $250,000 - $344,500

About The Position

As the Senior Director of Engineering, you will be a pivotal leader, setting the long-term technical vision and strategy for multiple engineering teams within Prisma AIRS. You will be responsible for driving the development of this industry-defining platform, scaling our engineering teams, and collaborating with executive leadership to ensure our technology strategy aligns with the broader business objectives.

Requirements

• Education: BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Experience: 15+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of building and shipping high-quality, large-scale, enterprise-grade cloud services.
• Leadership: 8+ years of formal engineering management experience, with at least 4+ years leading senior managers and multiple teams (managing managers).
• Technical Acumen: Exceptional technical judgment with deep, hands-on experience in designing, building, and operating highly scalable, distributed systems and cloud-native services (GCP, AWS, or Azure).
• Strategic Mindset: Demonstrated ability to translate complex business needs into a clear, actionable technical strategy and roadmap.
• Communication: Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with a strong executive presence and the ability to champion ideas and initiatives across the organization.

Nice To Haves

• Deep experience in the cybersecurity domain (e.g., threat detection, network security, cloud security, application security).
• Direct experience with AI/ML platforms, MLOps, or building security solutions for AI systems.
• Proven track record of managing geographically distributed teams.
• Experience presenting at industry conferences or engaging with executive-level customers.

Responsibilities

• Executive & Strategic Leadership: Define and execute the multi-year technical strategy and roadmap for the Prisma AIRS engineering organization, managing multiple teams and senior managers.
• Organizational Scaling: Build and lead a world-class, high-performing engineering organization. Excel at recruiting, mentoring, and retaining top-tier engineering managers and principal-level technical talent.
• Technical Vision: Drive the architectural direction for a complex, highly scalable, cloud-native AI security platform. Make critical high-judgment decisions on technology, architecture, and long-term design.
• Cross-Functional Execution: Partner seamlessly with senior leaders across Product Management, AI Research, UX, and other engineering leaders to deliver on a cohesive and ambitious product roadmap.
• Executive Communication: Represent the Prisma AIRS engineering organization at the highest levels. Clearly articulate technical vision, strategy, project status, and risks to executive stakeholders.
• Culture of Innovation: Foster a results-oriented culture of innovation, execution, collaboration, and engineering excellence, empowering teams to solve problems no one has pursued before.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Executive
• Number of Employees: 5,001-10,000 employees