Senior Principal Software Engineer (Cortex Platform)

• As a Senior Principal Backend Engineer in our Cortex group, you will be a key technical leader responsible for developing, innovating, and scaling the backend of our industry-leading products, including Cortex XSOAR, XDR, and XSIAM
• You will focus on the Cortex Platform and contribute to shared infrastructures, tackling complex problems to deliver significant value to thousands of customers
• Serve as an acknowledged technical leader, providing consultation and proactively collaborating across engineering teams to ensure alignment
• Drive the full lifecycle of projects from requirements gathering to final design and implementation, acting as a project lead or mentor
• Lead the alignment of planned work across the product by partnering with product management, UX design, and engineering stakeholders
• Utilize a big-picture perspective to identify, analyze, and provide practical solutions for complex existing and impending technical problems
• Design, build, and optimize highly scalable data models and queries using technologies such as MySQL and BigQuery, focusing on the details to ensure performance
• Develop robust business logic and API endpoints using Python and Flask, and build high-performance backend services using Go
• Proactively identify, articulate, and mitigate risks in projects to ensure smooth execution and high-quality output
• Mentor and empower other engineers across the department, fostering a culture of technical excellence and applied learning

### Benefits

• Healthcare: We value your health and provide options so you can choose what best supports your lifestyle and personal health goals. Various nationwide plans — including Blue Shield of California, Kaiser Permanente, Delta Dental, VSP, and more — are available to you and your family. Our providers offer the flexibility you want and the coverage you need
• Wellness: With a large on-site gym and daily, instructor-led exercise classes at HQ in Santa Clara, Palo Alto Networks actively supports employee fitness. Our juice bar, Gym & Juice, features fresh juice blends, a quick and nutritious option pre- or post-workout. And our ongoing wellness speaker series highlights the latest trends in health and wellness
• Development: Professional development is serious business at Palo Alto Networks, where the Talent Development team offers 25+ courses to help employees boost their careers and develop leadership capability
• Financial: Most roles are eligible for equity grants, and we now offer new hires a quarterly vesting schedule right away. We want you to be fairly compensated and rewarded as soon as you make an impact – on our team, that happens immediately! And because we consider every employee a stakeholder in our long-term success, we offer an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with a 24-month lookback. From life insurance to health savings accounts, we provide ways to help you protect and grow your wealth. Palo Alto Networks offers both traditional and Roth 401(k) options, along with a company match of 50% to a max annual amount of $1,000
• Time Off: In addition to paid corporate holidays, Flexible Time Off programs empower our employees to balance their work schedules with personal time off. We offer 12 weeks of full pay for medical leave and 6 weeks of full pay for parental leave. As a company with strong ties to the military and veterans, we also offer 26 weeks of full pay for military leave
• Perks: Our corporate discount program provides employees with significant discounts on merchandise, travel and entertainment. We offer many on-site perks at headquarters, including cafeterias, fuel service, dry cleaning service, EV charging stations, and a company store. We also provide complimentary drinks, fresh fruit, and snacks in break rooms across our campus to help everyone power through the day.

Life at Palo Alto Network- This role requires a can-do attitude and a passion for solving the most challenging cybersecurity threats
- Demonstrated experience as a hands-on technical lead or architect on complex software projects
- Expert-level programming skills in Python, Go, or Java, with proven experience building large-scale distributed systems
- 14+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a focus on distributed, cloud-native application development
- Extensive experience with cloud development, including REST APIs, databases, serverless computing, and microservices architectures
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field
- 8+ years of hands-on experience with specific cloud technologies such as ElasticSearch, Google Pub/Sub, or similar
- Deep understanding of public cloud design considerations, including security, global network infrastructure, and load balancing
- Proven ability to make data-driven trade-off judgments and excellent troubleshooting skills to isolate and resolve complex issues
- Experience working in an agile environment with cross-functional teams to deliver full-stack products at scale