Palo Alto Networks · 1 hour ago
Sr. Principal Software Engineer (Cortex Platform)
Santa Clara, CA
Full-time
Onsite
Senior Level, Lead/Staff
$170K/yr - $277K/yr
14+ years expPalo Alto Networks is united by a shared mission to protect our digital way of life through innovation and technology. As a Senior Principal Backend Engineer in the Cortex group, you will lead the development and scaling of backend solutions for industry-leading cybersecurity products, tackling complex challenges and delivering significant value to customers.
Agentic AICloud SecurityCyber SecurityNetwork SecuritySecurity
Responsibilities
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
Qualification
Required
Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field
14+ years of professional software engineering experience, with a focus on distributed, cloud-native application development
Expert-level programming skills in Python, Go, or Java, with proven experience building large-scale distributed systems
Extensive experience with cloud development, including REST APIs, databases, serverless computing, and microservices architectures
Demonstrated experience as a hands-on technical lead or architect on complex software projects
Preferred
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
Benefits
Restricted stock units
Bonus
Company
Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks is a cybersecurity company that offers cybersecurity solutions for organizations.
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
2026-01-22
The Motley Fool
2026-01-22
Company data provided by crunchbase