Sr Manager, SQA Automation Engineering

Palo Alto Networks

About The Position

The Strata Cloud Manager is our flagship, public-cloud-delivered platform designed to operationalize the world’s most complex network security deployments. As we scale this multi-tenant solution across physical, virtual, and containerized form factors, we are looking for a visionary Senior Manager who balances rigorous engineering standards with a relentless AI-First mindset. You will lead a high-performing team of engineers, fostering a culture of empowerment and collaboration. This is not just a management role; it is an opportunity to own the end-to-end quality strategy for a platform at the forefront of cybersecurity innovation.

Requirements

12+ years of experience in SDET roles, with proven experience in a leadership/management capacity.
Automation Expert: Strong proficiency in Python (Pytest) for API testing and JavaScript/Selenium/Playwright for UI automation.
Cloud & Networking: Deep knowledge of TCP/IP Networking and Network Security. Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP is required.
AI Advocate: A demonstrated passion for applying innovative AI-based tools to accelerate coding and testing processes.
Modern Tooling: Experience with GitLab CI/CD, Linux, and virtualization (ESXi) or containerization (Docker/K8s).
Education: BS or MS in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.

Nice To Haves

Experience testing networking and security products
Proven track record of managing distributed teams in a fast-paced, high-growth cloud environment.

Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership: Build and mentor a world-class QE team. You will drive individual growth and collective impact, ensuring your team has the tools and coaching to excel.
AI Transformation: Revolutionize the QA lifecycle by leveraging Artificial Intelligence to accelerate test generation, refactoring, and debugging. You will stay at the cutting edge of AI-based testing methodologies to boost engineering productivity.
Cross-Functional Partnership: Align with Product Management, UX, SRE, and Dev teams to shape multi-quarter roadmaps and ensure quality is baked into the product from day one.
Operational Excellence: Own production readiness. You will enforce best practices around deployment, observability, and runtime stability to ensure a secure, scalable customer experience.
Customer Advocacy: Engage directly with strategic customers for technical deep dives and architecture reviews, using those insights to influence the product direction.
Technical Ownership: Oversee the development of robust automation frameworks for REST APIs and UIs, ensuring high-quality delivery across AWS, GCP, and Azure.
Quality Lifecycle: Translate product strategy into executable test plans, covering functional, system, endurance, and scale testing.
Automation Architecture: Lead the design and maintenance of automation frameworks and tools that enable continuous, confident releases.
Infrastructure & CI/CD: Expand and build both functional and system testbeds; maintain and optimize GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
Network & Cloud Mastery: Debug complex issues across L2–L7 protocols, TCP/IP networking, and cloud-native environments (Docker/Kubernetes).
Troubleshooting & Triage: Lead the team in debugging customer-reported issues, verifying fixes, and integrating new test cases to prevent regressions.