Sr. Engineering Manager - (Console)

Palo Alto Networks•Office - USA - CA - Console Systems, CA

2d•$197,200 - $319,000

About The Position

Palo Alto Networks is hiring a hands-on Engineering Manager to lead the team building the core systems that power Console's AI agents. The team is responsible for agent execution, orchestration, and distributed backend systems that enable autonomous workflows across enterprise applications. The role combines deep technical involvement with engineering leadership. The manager stays close to architecture, system design, implementation, debugging, and technical problem-solving, while partnering with Tech Leads and empowering engineers to own implementation. Key technical challenges include distributed execution, workflow orchestration, state management, and reliability. The manager is accountable for building an exceptional team, developing engineers, and driving execution in an ambiguous, fast-moving environment. Palo Alto Networks describes its work model as predominantly office-based, with flexibility when needed, to support in-person collaboration.

Requirements

At least 8 years of software engineering experience, including at least 3 years managing engineering teams; experience across high-growth startups and larger organizations is ideal.
Strong technical foundation in backend, platform, or distributed systems engineering, with experience designing and shipping complex production systems.
Experience with distributed architectures, asynchronous execution, concurrency, state management, or workflow orchestration, and sound judgment navigating complex technical tradeoffs.
Ability to engage deeply in distributed systems architecture, challenge technical assumptions, and contribute directly to complex engineering problem-solving.
Ability to create urgency, drive accountability, and deliver commitments in ambiguous, fast-moving environments.
Ability to recognize exceptional engineers, set a high bar, and develop teams through coaching, candid feedback, and clear expectations.
Product-minded and collaborative, with the ability to connect technical decisions to customer impact and work effectively across Product, AI, and Engineering.
An AI-native engineering leader who actively explores emerging AI technologies and development tools and has informed opinions about their impact on software development.

Nice To Haves

Experience building or leading teams responsible for agentic AI platforms, workflow orchestration engines, or distributed execution systems.
Familiarity with LLM application architectures, agent frameworks, tool calling, or AI observability.
Experience leading platform teams responsible for foundational systems used across multiple engineering teams.
Founding engineering or early-stage startup experience, particularly building and scaling 0-to-1 products or systems.

Responsibilities

Lead a high-performing platform engineering team responsible for Console's agent execution, orchestration, and foundational backend systems, establishing clear ownership and accountability.
Stay involved in architecture, system design, debugging, and technical problem-solving; partner with Tech Leads on complex engineering challenges and contribute to implementation when needed.
Drive engineering execution and delivery by translating product and technical priorities into plans, managing dependencies, and delivering against commitments.
Partner with Product and AI Engineering to evolve Console's agentic architecture and deliver scalable platform capabilities for increasingly sophisticated agent workflows.
Own team performance and development, including coaching, career growth, feedback, promotions, and difficult conversations.
Partner with Tech Leads on technical scope, sequencing, and timelines while empowering them to own detailed technical decisions and maintaining accountability for delivery.
Build and scale the engineering team through hiring, talent development, and resource allocation, introducing structure without unnecessary bureaucracy.