Principal Software Engineer (Cortex)

Company Description

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.

Job Description

Your Career

The Cortex Threat Intelligence team is growing, and we’re looking for a Senior Software Engineer to join our team. This team builds the systems that transform raw signals into trusted, timely intelligence for security teams. Your work will shape a platform that delivers clear, actionable insights to help prevent attacks and accelerate response.

As a Senior Software Engineer on this team, you will contribute to the entire development lifecycle of our systems, from architecture and implementation to testing, deployment, and operation. You will design and scale distributed systems, build high-throughput ingestion pipelines, and APIs that transform raw signals into trustworthy intelligence across Cortex.

Your Impact

• Design, build, and maintain the core services and data pipelines.
• Take part in architecture strategy sessions—work with your colleagues to design solutions that accommodate the requirements of the various modules across Cortex.
• Collaborate with your team to solve problems, reduce technical debt, and evolve development practices.
• Drive technical best practices and evangelize new technologies within the engineering organization.
• Collaborate with other engineers and ensure that your team delivers high-quality output.
• Take ownership of projects, drive them to completion, and support them in production.
• We're looking for a seasoned engineer with:

Qualifications

Your Experience

• 5+ years of professional experience in software engineering, with a proven track record of designing, developing, deploying, and supporting complex, scalable software systems.
• Proficiency in Python and Go programming languages.
• Extensive experience with API design and development, including RESTful APIs and microservices architecture.
• Demonstrated experience in building and maintaining data pipelines and ETL processes.
• Ability to lead across research, design, prototyping, and implementation phases.
• Expertise with software development best practices, including CI/CD, automated testing, and agile methodologies.
• Working knowledge of at least one major cloud platform (GCP, AWS, or Azure), preferably GCP.
• Proven experience driving design and implementation of technical solutions in the face of ambiguity—we will ask you about this.
• Proven technical team leadership and interest in mentoring other engineers in order to contribute to the technical growth of the team.

Nice To Haves:

• Experience with or interest in frontend development.
• Experience in Threat Intelligence.
• Experience in building Cybersecurity products.

Additional Information

The Team

Cortex Threat Intelligence transforms our Unit 42 expertise and global telemetry into precise, timely intelligence that powers detection, prevention, and investigation across the Cortex platform. Your work will help safeguard critical missions by delivering intelligence that is clear, actionable, and timely.

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 $175000 - $220000/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  accommodations@paloaltonetworks.com.

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.