Sr Principal Engineer Software (Backend)

Palo Alto Networks • Seattle, WA

2d • $170,000 - $277,000 • Onsite

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 Our engineering team is at the core of our products – connected directly to the mission of preventing cyberattacks. We are constantly innovating – challenging how we and the industry think about cybersecurity. Our engineers don’t shy away from building products to solve problems no one has pursued before. Check out details around our Prisma AIRS team formerly Protect AI. We define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of a challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment. Job Summary With Prisma AIRS, Palo Alto Networks is building the world's most comprehensive AI security platform. Organizations are increasingly building complex ecosystems of AI models, applications, and agents, creating dynamic new attack surfaces with risks that traditional security approaches cannot address. In response, Prisma AIRS delivers model security, posture management, AI red teaming, and runtime protection. Our customers can confidently deploy AI-driven innovation while ensuring a formidable security posture from development through runtime. This is not a remote opportunity. Located at our dynamic downtown Seattle, WA office, we are in the office 3+ days a week. We are looking for a highly skilled and experienced Software Engineer to join the Prisma AIRS Model Security team. In this role, you will play a crucial part in designing, developing, and optimizing robust, scalable, and high-performance backend systems that power our cutting-edge AI security platform.

Requirements

• Expertise in at least one programming language such as modern Python (type hints, Pydantic, etc), Go, Java, C#, or C++
• Experience in designing large distributed system and web services in the cloud
• Experience writing comprehensive unit, integration, and end-to-end tests
• Experience with a major cloud provider like GCP (preferred), AWS, or Azure
• BS or MS in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent professional experience or equivalent military experience

Nice To Haves

• 15+ years in the following areas
• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitLab, and Grafana is a plus
• Experience partnering with front end engineers (collaborate on schema required to power a UI, for example) is a plus
• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to collaborate and convey ideas effectively
• Self-disciplined, self-managed, self-motivated, and strong sense of ownership, urgency, and drive
• Ready to understand and dissect new technology stacks quickly
• Excited about working in an agile and fast paced environment.

Responsibilities

• Design and build innovative, scalable software products to ensure our customers can use AI securely
• Own new features/functionality from start to finish.
• Participate in all phases of the product development cycle, from definition, design, through implementation and test.
• Ensure that applications are production-ready, scalable, and reliable
• Collaborate with product managers, frontend software engineers, product designers, and infrastructure engineers to shape the future of Prisma AIRS Model Security
• Operate production services with hundreds of enterprise customers as a true owner, ensuring that Prisma AIRS customers experience top-notch reliability, availability, and performance
• Develop expertise in new technologies and keep up with the rapidly evolving AI security landscape

What This Job Offers

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