Principal Software Engineer Data Platform ( Cortex)

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

Join the Cortex team as a Principal Backend Engineer and own the backend strategy for our integrated detection and response engine. You will be responsible for transforming raw endpoint, network, and cloud data into actionable intelligence, using AI-driven techniques to dramatically reduce false positives and focus our defense on what truly matters: stopping the world’s most critical threats.

Key Responsibilities

• backed by the massive scale and resources of a global leader, to architect and scale a world-class data infrastructure capable of processing billions of events per second in real-time.

• Integrate state-of-the-art AI technologies to transform raw telemetry from the industry's leading cyber products into high-fidelity, actionable intelligence.

• Own the end-to-end software development life cycle, from conceptualizing complex distributed systems to deploying high-performance code, building AI-augmented systems that are fast, maintainable, and resilient.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of software engineering experience.

• Experience in distributed cloud products.

• Knowledge of the cyber field.

• BSc in Computer Science or equivalent knowledge or equivalent military experience.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with a variety of database technologies (e.g., MySQL, Cassandra, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Elasticsearch, Neo4J).

• Experience in designing, building, and maintaining a scalable server-side application.

• Proven experience in AI Workloads, including hands-on experience building and scaling AI/ML workloads, and familiarity with LLM orchestration and Model Serving.

• Experience in Python.

• Experience with Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

• Experience with Kubernetes or Docker.

Our Commitment

We’re trailblazers that dream big, take risks, and challenge cybersecurity’s status quo. It’s simple: we can’t accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at  accommodations@paloaltonetworks.com.

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship? No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.