Principal Engineer Software- Backend Infra (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

Your Impact

You will work closely with a wide range of teams, both within and beyond the group - including DevOps, application teams, QA, and leadership .

We operate in a space where every optimization, improvement, process change, or new initiative can have a ripple effect across the entire Cortex organization. This gives the role significant visibility and influence, with the opportunity to drive changes that benefit teams and systems far beyond our immediate scope.

Qualifications (must)

- 7+ years of software engineering experience
- E2E execution and driving processes through the organisation (i.e with external teams/organisational units) / technical leadership
- Lead technical design for complex backend and platform domains, balancing long-term architecture with practical delivery.
- Experience in distributed cloud products - including K8S & Docker, DataBases (MySQL, Postgres, Redis), managed services, GCP.
- Experience with troubleshooting production issues
- Experience in Python - Must

Preferred qualifications

- Incorporating AI in day to day process - CI, design, forming Agents for production & debugging.
- Knowledge of the cyber field.

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On-Call

- Participate in an on-call rotation covering the mission-critical components that the Cortex Platform relies on.
- Apply strong troubleshooting and investigative skills, connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated events and symptoms to identify the responsible teams and drive issues toward resolution.
- Identify root causes and take end-to-end ownership of incidents - coordinating, managing, and delegating as needed, while ensuring clear action items are defined and followed through by the relevant teams.
- Lead or contribute to customer-facing RCAs , translating complex technical investigations into clear and actionable explanations.
- The on-call rotation includes weekends and holidays.

The Team

We are a team of Principal Engineers with diverse backgrounds, including DBAs, software architects, team leads, and tech leads. The items that we ship vary from product roadmap to low-level databases optimisation and consultation. We move fast and appreciate independent highly skilled engineers with diverse backgrounds, and critical thinkers and seeing the entire picture and not only the standalone service/feature.

Qualifications

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   [email protected] .

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.