Principal Software Engineer (Infrastructure Platform)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.
Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

Your Career

We are seeking a highly skilled Principal Software Engineer to join our team. You will utilize your extensive experience to shape and enhance our product. You will play a pivotal role in developing cutting-edge web applications that drive our cybersecurity efforts. Our Engineers are crucial in building and maintaining robust and scalable solutions.

This role is located at our dynamic Santa Clara California headquarters campus, and in office 3 days a week.

Your Impact

As a Principal Software Engineer, your key responsibilities will include:

• Develop, optimize, test, and maintain high-performance web applications: You will be responsible for ensuring our web applications are fast, efficient, and provide a seamless user experience.

• You will collaborate with cross-functional teams to design, build, and optimize features, working on both frontend and backend aspects of our web applications.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams: You will work closely with designers, product managers, and other engineers to design, build, and optimize features, ensuring our web applications meet the highest standards.

Your Experience 

To be successful in this role, you should have:

• 8+ years of experience in designing, deploying, and operating reliable and scalable systems in production.
• Expertise with at least one major cloud provider (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and solid skills in Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Pulumi, or similar).
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes (or equivalent), including cluster management, scaling, monitoring, and troubleshooting.
• Strong background in implementing logging, metrics, and tracing solutions using tools such as Prometheus, Grafana, ELK/EFK, Jaeger, or OpenTelemetry.
• Proven experience building, maintaining, and improving automated build, test, and deployment pipelines using tools like Jenkins, GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, or ArgoCD.
• Ability to design, build, and maintain internal developer platforms that improve developer productivity, reduce friction, and enable self-service for deployments and monitoring.
• Demonstrated ability to write clean, maintainable, and efficient code in Python or Go for automation, tooling, or platform services.
• Deep knowledge of distributed systems design, scalability, fault tolerance, and resilience engineering.
• A proactive and collaborative approach to problem-solving, with the ability to work independently and as part of a team.
• Awareness of security principles in cloud-native environments and experience integrating security into DevOps workflows.

Ideal Candidate

You should have experience working on high-performance web applications, a strong proficiency in python or Golang and a good understanding of web application architecture

The Team

Our engineering team is at the core of our products – connected directly to the mission of preventing cyberattacks. We are constantly innovating – challenging the way we, and the industry, think about cybersecurity. Our engineers don’t shy away from building products to solve problems no one has pursued before. We define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of a challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment. 

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between:     $191,000/yr to $215,500/yr. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

Our Commitment

We’re problem solvers that 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?: Yes