Staff Engineer Software (Cortex Platform) - US Citizen

Palo Alto Networks•Office - USA - CA - Headquarters, CA

2d•$111,500 - $180,400•Onsite

About The Position

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to join its Cortex backend engineering group. The role develops, innovates, and scales the Cortex Platform and contributes to shared infrastructure and components supporting products including Cortex XSOAR, Cortex XDR, and Cortex XSIAM. The work aims to deliver value to customers around the world by enhancing the Cortex product suite. The engineer leads backend features and core components throughout their lifecycle, from design and development through testing, deployment, and maintenance. The role involves building and maintaining high-scale distributed server-side applications, collaborating across teams and disciplines, engaging with customers to understand operational challenges, and contributing to technical and architectural decisions. A focus on implementation detail supports simple, maintainable shared components, while ongoing learning helps improve system architecture and development processes. Palo Alto Networks says most teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when needed, to support real-time problem-solving and collaboration. The position is not eligible for immigration sponsorship. The posted annual base salary range is $111,500 to $180,400; compensation depends on qualifications, experience, and work location, and may also include restricted stock units and a bonus.

Requirements

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

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 such as Docker and Kubernetes.
Familiarity with modern CI/CD pipelines and infrastructure as code.

Responsibilities

Lead end-to-end backend development of features and core components, from design and development through testing, deployment, and maintenance.
Collaborate and exchange information with peers across teams and disciplines to design and integrate effective solutions.
Engage with customers to understand their challenges and provide technical solutions for their operational needs.
Contribute to team technical and architectural decisions and participate in code and design reviews.
Design, build, and maintain high-scale, distributed server-side applications with a focus on reliability and performance.
Ensure implementation simplicity and code maintainability for shared Cortex infrastructure and components.
Apply lessons from new technical challenges to improve system architecture and development processes.