Senior Staff Engineer Software (Cortex Platform)

Palo Alto Networks•San Francisco, CA

2d•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 The Team Cortex Platform - The Cortex Platform team is responsible for developing and maintaining the backend of Cortex products, including Cortex XSOAR, Cortex XDR, and Cortex XSIAM. The team focuses on developing, innovating, and scaling the Cortex Platform, along with contributing to shared Cortex infrastructures and components, to bring value to thousands of customers. Job Summary We are seeking a Senior Software Engineer to join our Cortex backend engineering group. In this role, you will be pivotal in developing, innovating, and scaling the Cortex Platform, contributing to shared infrastructures and components. This position is for a passionate engineer with a can-do attitude, who thrives on solving complex problems and delivering significant value to our global customer base by enhancing our Cortex product suite.

Requirements

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
5+ years of professional software engineering experience, including designing and building scalable server-side applications.
Proven experience with a variety of database technologies, including both RDBMS and NoSQL systems.
Demonstrated experience in designing and working with distributed cloud products and microservices architecture.
Proficiency in Python or Go programming languages.

Nice To Haves

Master's degree in Computer Science or a related technical field.
Hands-on experience with major cloud platforms such as GCP, AWS, or Azure.
Experience with containerization and orchestration technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
Familiarity with modern CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code.

Responsibilities

Lead the end-to-end backend development of features and core components through the entire lifecycle, from design and development to testing, deployment, and maintenance.
Proactively collaborate and exchange information with peers across different teams and disciplines to design and integrate effective solutions.
Engage with customers to understand their challenges and provide robust technical solutions that address their day-to-day operational needs.
Contribute to team-wide technical and architectural decisions, participating actively in code and design reviews to ensure quality and alignment.
Design, build, and maintain high-scale, distributed server-side applications, ensuring reliability and performance.
Focus on the details of implementation to ensure the simplicity and maintainability of code for shared Cortex infrastructures and components.
Apply learning from new technical challenges to continuously improve system architecture and development processes.