Palo Alto Networks · 1 month ago
Sr Principal Machine Learning Engineer (Prisma AIRS)
Santa Clara, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$185K/yr - $299K/yrPalo Alto Networks is committed to protecting the digital way of life through innovative cybersecurity solutions. As a Senior Principal Machine Learning Engineer, you will lead research and development in AI security, driving new product opportunities and collaborating with engineering teams to ensure impactful model deployment.
Agentic AICloud SecurityCyber SecurityNetwork SecuritySecurity
Responsibilities
Lead the architectural design of a highly scalable, low-latency, and resilient ML inference platform capable of serving a diverse range of models for real-time security applications
Define technical approaches to less-defined product requirements, ensuring the best fit between product features and technical implementation. Explore new product opportunities by maintaining a deep understanding of LLM and Generative AI research trends
Technical Leadership: Provide technical leadership and mentorship to the team, driving best practices in MLOps, software engineering, and system design
Strategic Optimization: Drive the strategy for model and system performance, guiding research and implementation of advanced optimization techniques like custom kernels, hardware acceleration, and novel serving frameworks
Set The Standard: Establish and enforce engineering standards for automated model deployment, robust monitoring, and operational excellence for all production ML systems
Cross-Functional Vision: Act as a key technical liaison to other principal engineers, architects, and product leaders to shape the future of the Prisma AIRS platform and ensure end-to-end system cohesion
Solve the Hardest Problems: Tackle the most ambiguous and challenging technical problems in large-scale inference, from mitigating novel security threats to achieving unprecedented performance goals
Qualification
Required
BS/MS or Ph.D. in Computer Science, a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
Extensive professional experience in software engineering with a deep focus on MLOps, ML systems, or productionizing machine learning models at scale
Expert-level programming skills in Python are required
Deep, hands-on experience designing and building large-scale distributed systems on a major cloud platform (GCP, AWS, Azure, or OCI)
Proven track record of leading the architecture of complex ML systems and MLOps pipelines using technologies like Kubernetes and Docker
Mastery of ML frameworks (TensorFlow, PyTorch) and extensive experience with advanced inference optimization tools (ONNX, TensorRT)
A strong understanding of popular model architectures (e.g., Transformers, CNNs, GNNs) is a must
Demonstrated expertise with modern LLM inference engines (e.g., vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM) is required
Preferred
Experience in a systems language like Go, Java, or C++ is nice to have
A deeper understanding of attention mechanisms and related knowledge is a plus
Open-source contributions in modern LLM inference engines (e.g., vLLM, SGLang, TensorRT-LLM) are a significant plus
Experience with low-level performance optimization, such as custom CUDA kernel development or using Triton Language, is a plus
Experience with data infrastructure technologies (e.g., Kafka, Spark, Flink) is great to have
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and automation tools (e.g., Jenkins, GitLab CI, Tekton) is a plus
Benefits
Restricted stock units
Bonus
Company
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks is a cybersecurity company that offers cybersecurity solutions for organizations.
Founded in 2005
10001+ employees
H1B Sponsorship
Palo Alto Networks has a track record of offering H1B sponsorships. Please note that this does not
guarantee sponsorship for this specific role. Below presents additional info for your
reference. (Data Powered by US Department of Labor)
Distribution of Different Job Fields Receiving Sponsorship
Represents job field similar to this job
Trends of Total Sponsorships
2025 (579)
2024 (482)
2023 (341)
2022 (452)
2021 (493)
2020 (235)
Funding
Current Stage
Public CompanyTotal Funding
$65MKey Investors
Icon VenturesLehman HoldingsGlobespan Capital Partners
2012-07-20IPO
2008-11-03Series C· $10M
2008-08-18Series C· $27M
Leadership Team
Helmut Reisinger
CEO EMEA
Nikesh Arora
Chairman CEO
Recent News
2026-01-13
Jerusalem Post
2026-01-11
2026-01-09
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