Principal Senior Software Engineer | Backend & Cloud (Cortex Cloud)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks were united by a shared missionto 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 youre ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are youre 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!

Job Summary

As a Senior or Principal Software Engineer in Cortex Cloud you will contribute to the development and scaling of cloud-native security solutions for enterprise organizations. This role involves working within an established team to evolve a high-traffic product with a focus on refining architecture optimizing the technology stack and maintaining engineering standards.

Your responsibilities include writing reliable code influencing product direction and designing distributed systems. You will be expected to make technical decisions that impact the long-term stability and performance of cloud workload protection services.

AI Integration & Engineering Workflow

A core component of our development process is the use of AI. Rather than basic code completion we integrate AI assistants as functional components of our workflow. Our team utilizes a multi-agent AI system (IDEX/ProDex) that assists across the development lifecycle: from planning and architecture to code analysis and security reviews.

In this role you will:

• Work with AI Tools: Utilize platforms such as Gemini Claude and Cursor for tasks beyond code generation including root-cause analysis system design reviews and architectural assessment.

• Develop AI-Augmented Workflows: Help refine how AI is integrated into the SDLC including the orchestration of agents and the development of internal tools that extend AI capabilities across our codebase.

• Maintain Quality Standards: While AI assists in increasing velocity you are responsible for the technical output. This includes critical review of all generated code and ensuring that AI-assisted work aligns with our architectural requirements and security benchmarks.

• Interact with Specialized Agents: Coordinate with AI agents (Product Architecture Security) that operate on shared context to assist in managing complex engineering tasks.

We are looking for engineers who are interested in leveraging AI as a technical tool to manage complexity and who want to contribute to the practical application of human-AI collaboration in a cloud environment.

Qualifications

Your Experience

• Backend Engineering: 5 years of experience building and maintaining production-grade distributed systems.

• Languages: Proficiency in Go (Golang) is a strong advantage. We are open to engineers with deep expertise in other backend languages (Java Python Rust C# or ) who are willing to transition to a Go-primary stack and have a focus on clean well-tested code.

• Fundamentals: Strong grasp of system design data structures and algorithms in high-scale cloud environments.

• Standards: Experience with CI/CD comprehensive testing (unit integration E2E) and rigorous code reviews.

• Cloud: Proficiency in AWS GCP or Azure including cloud-native services.

• Reliability: Experience with observability (monitoring logging tracing) and system profiling.

• Education: . Computer Science Software Engineering or equivalent technical/military experience.

Advantages

• Advanced Go: Deep experience with concurrency and memory management patterns.

• Distributed SaaS: Background in managing multi-tenant cloud-based SaaS at scale.

• Cybersecurity: Familiarity with threat detection or cloud security infrastructure.

• AI Systems: Interest in agentic workflows or prompt engineering in production.

Our Commitment

Were trailblazers that dream big take risks and challenge cybersecuritys status quo. Its simple: we cant 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 .

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.