Senior Security Researcher Incident Response Automation Windows & Linux (Cortex)

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 the architect of the Autonomous SOC you will dive deep into Windows and Linux internals to understand modern adversary techniques. Your mission is to transform the complex art of incident response into high-fidelity automated science. You will investigate attacker tradecraft analyze forensic artifacts and build the logic that allows customers to respond to breaches in seconds.

How we work:

• The Anatomy of an Attack: We deconstruct complex attack patterns across Windows and Linux to build forensic blueprints. We dont just find a threat; we map out the exact response flows and forensic steps needed to dismantle it from the inside out.

• Precision Matters: We obsess over finding the exact thresholds that allow us to neutralize threats without disrupting the user experience.

• Innovation First: We arent satisfied with off-the-shelf tools; we develop our own research frameworks and leverage AI to amplify our efficiency.

• From Insight to Action: We dont just write reports. Every piece of research we conduct is designed to be codified into a sophisticated automated response playbook that protects our customers at machine speed.

Were looking for people who want to see their research solve impossible problems in real-time.

Key Responsibilities

• Deep Forensic Research: Conduct original research into Windows and Linux attack surfaces to identify new response and remediation vectors.

• Codify IR Tradecraft: Translate complex investigative steps (e.g. memory forensics binary analysis or cloud-native IR) into scalable automated workflows.

• Engineer Autonomous Logic: Design self-healing security playbooks that dont just alert but actively neutralize threats across Endpoint Identity and Cloud environments.

• Telemetry Mining: Hunt through massive datasets in Cortex XSIAM to find the ground truth of an attack and validate that your automations are bulletproof.

• Shape the Product: Act as a subject matter expert for the engineering team influencing how our XDR and NDR sensors collect data based on your IR findings.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• 5 years of experience in DFIR or Threat Hunting including a proven track record of manually containing and remediating live security breaches.

• Proficiency in Windows (Processes Registry RPC WMI) and/or Linux internals (Kernel modules Syscalls Namespaces).

• Experience with forensic frameworks and tooling such as Volatility Sleuthkit Velociraptor or similar environments.

• Proficiency in writing clean testable and efficient Python code with the ability to approach automation as a formal software engineering discipline.

• Ability to query and manipulate large-scale telemetry using SQL or Pandas to prove complex research hypotheses.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on experience authoring SOAR playbooks (Cortex XSOAR/XSIAM preferred).

• Previous experience in content or engineering for XDR EDR NDR or SOAR products.

• Background in machine learning or statistical modeling for detection and response.

• Practical experience with big data platforms.

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.