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Principal Machine Learning Engineer (DLP)

Palo Alto Networks

Santa Clara, CA
Full Time
Senior
136k-215k
20 days ago

Job Description

About the Role

The Principal Machine Learning Engineer (DLP) at Palo Alto Networks is a key member of a fast-paced team that develops innovative AI-driven products to help organizations discover, classify, and protect highly sensitive data across SaaS applications. The role involves building models, deploying solutions into production, and leading efforts to advance data security and privacy through machine learning and natural language processing techniques. The position is based at the Santa Clara headquarters with a hybrid work schedule, emphasizing collaboration, innovation, and disruption in cybersecurity.

Key Responsibilities

  • Develop AI-driven solutions using state-of-the-art machine learning, natural language processing, and deep learning techniques including large language models to analyze structured and unstructured datasets, classify documents, extract insights, and detect nuanced patterns.
  • Enhance AI accuracy and reliability by leveraging advances in deep learning and NLP to build scalable models that optimize precision, minimize false positives/negatives, and improve the overall product experience.
  • Lead end-to-end machine learning implementation by architecting and owning scalable, efficient, and maintainable ML pipelines, ensuring seamless integration with production systems.
  • Drive ML innovation and best practices by acting as a technical leader, championing experimentation, deployment strategies, and ML best practices across teams.
  • Identify high-impact opportunities by discovering novel applications of AI/ML to solve complex data security and privacy challenges, shaping a high-value roadmap.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams including Product, Engineering, and Business to align ML advancements with strategic goals, particularly in Data Security and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) solutions.

Requirements

  • MS or PhD in Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, or a related field, or equivalent military experience.
  • 5+ years of industry or academic experience in software development, with at least 2 years as a machine learning engineer, data scientist, or LLM specialist.
  • Strong programming skills with experience in distributed cloud systems such as GCP, AWS, or Azure, and containerization technologies like Docker and Kubernetes.
  • Proven ability to solve real-world problems using machine learning, deep learning, and generative AI techniques.
  • Experience with deep learning frameworks (PyTorch, TensorFlow), NLP models (transformers, BERT, GPT), Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and Large Language Models (LLMs).
  • Proficiency in ML algorithms such as XGBoost, CatBoost, CNNs, LSTMs, and NLP frameworks like spaCy, Gensim, NLTK, and tokenization techniques (Byte Pair Encoding, WordPiece, SentencePiece).
  • Strong understanding of ML Ops, model evaluation, fine-tuning, prompt engineering, and deployment best practices.
  • Hands-on experience building and optimizing LLM-powered applications, vector search systems, and multimodal AI solutions.
  • A 'get stuff done' attitude, thriving in a fast-paced, collaborative environment while leading cutting-edge AI initiatives.
  • Passion for security and AI-driven threat detection, with prior experience in NLP, cybersecurity, or data protection products a plus.

Nice to Have

  • Prior experience in NLP, cybersecurity, or data protection products.

Qualifications

  • Educational background with MS or PhD in relevant fields or equivalent military experience.
  • Minimum of 5 years in software development, with at least 2 years focused on machine learning, data science, or LLMs.

Benefits & Perks

  • Compensation between $136,000 and $215,000 per year, depending on qualifications and experience.
  • Potential inclusion of restricted stock units and bonuses.
  • Flexible wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items.
  • Mental and financial health resources.
  • Personalized learning opportunities.

Working at Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks fosters a culture of innovation, collaboration, and disruption in cybersecurity. The company values diversity, inclusion, ongoing learning, and personal wellbeing. Employees work in an environment that encourages problem-solving, risk-taking, and challenging the status quo, with a focus on building products that solve previously unpursued problems and shape the future of cybersecurity.

Apply Now

Job Details

Posted AtMay 31, 2025
Job CategoryData Science
Salary136k-215k
Job TypeFull Time
Work ModeOnsite
ExperienceSenior

About Palo Alto Networks

Website

paloaltonetworks.com

Company Size

10000+ employees

Location

Santa Clara, CA

Industry

Software Publishers

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