Principal Software Engineer (Cortex Backend)

Palo Alto Networks

Santa Clara, CA

Full Time

Senior

147k-238k

22 days ago

Job Description

About the Role

The Principal Software Engineer (Cortex Backend) at Palo Alto Networks is responsible for developing and maintaining the backend of Cortex products, including Cortex XSOAR, Cortex XDR, and Cortex XSIAM. The role involves innovating, scaling, and contributing to shared Cortex infrastructures and components within a team focused on complex problem-solving and delivering value to thousands of customers. The company values collaboration, ongoing learning, diversity, and a fast-paced, innovative environment that supports personal and professional growth.

Key Responsibilities

End-to-end backend development of features and components across their entire life cycle (design, develop, test, deploy, maintain).
Work closely with peers across different teams and disciplines to shape solutions and integrate with other parts of the product.
Contribute to team-wide efforts such as code reviews, design reviews, and making technical and architectural decisions.
Provide real-time mitigation and solutions to production issues with a production-oriented approach.
Proactively review design, identify risks, and mitigate risks in ongoing and planned projects to ensure smooth execution.
Design, build, and optimize data models and queries for speed and scale, using data storage technologies like MySQL and BigQuery.

Requirements

M.S/B.S degree in Computer Science or equivalent and 8+ years of software engineering experience, including development of a scalable server-side application or equivalent military experience.
Extensive hands-on programming skills in Python and/or Go.
Strong computer science fundamentals (e.g., understanding of lock-free data structures, bloom filters, minimal perfect hashing, consistent hashing).
Proven experience with cloud platforms such as GCP, AWS, or Azure.
Experience with Microservices architecture (Kubernetes, GKE, EKS, AKS, Docker, Serverless).
Experience with big-data architectures (using Kafka, Splunk, Flink, etc).
Experience with distributed computing and/or distributed databases/KVPs (BigQuery, Elastic Search, Kafka/PubSub, SingleStore).
Hands-on experience with SQL/NoSQL databases.
Excellent troubleshooting abilities to isolate issues and verify bug fixes.
Experience working with agile development teams building full-stack cloud-deployed products.
Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines and cloud infrastructure.
Familiarity with Cyber Technologies, Information Security, and Software Security.

Nice to Have

Experience with serverless architectures.
Knowledge of security best practices in software development.
Experience with additional cloud services and tools.

Qualifications

Degree in Computer Science or equivalent.
8+ years of relevant software engineering experience.

Benefits & Perks

Compensation between $147,000 and $237,500 per year, depending on qualifications and experience.
Potential inclusion of restricted stock units and bonuses.
Employee benefits detailed in the company's benefits description.

Working at Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks fosters a culture of problem-solving, risk-taking, and challenging the cybersecurity status quo. The company emphasizes diversity, collaboration, innovation, and continuous learning. It values in-person interactions to build trusted relationships and creates an environment where all employees can thrive through support for personal wellbeing and development programs.

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