Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (Customer Engineering, Prisma AIRS)

Jobs Paloaltonetworks; United Kingdom; Hybrid; GBP 110,000 - 177,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks seeks a Forward Deployed Engineer for Prisma AIRS in the United Kingdom. You will embed with customer teams, write production code, and design secure, low-latency architectures. You’ll bridge customer environments with core engineering while contributing code back to the core Prisma AIRS engine.

You’ll lead architectural reviews, deploy across multi-cloud and hybrid setups, and troubleshoot complex distributed systems, shaping enterprise AI workloads for production use.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/AI or 7+ years of engineering experience.
• Deep API development experience with Python/Go/TypeScript or C++.
• Hands-on experience with LLM orchestration and prompt security.
• Containerization and IaC across AWS, GCP, or Azure.
• Security, networking, and zero-trust concepts.
• Testing frameworks and QA for distributed systems.
• Experience interfacing with CIOs/CISOs and aligning roadmaps.

Responsibilities

• Write production-grade code to integrate Prisma AIRS with microservices.
• Design low-latency topologies and custom middleware/plugins.
• Develop deployment modules using Terraform, Helm, Kubernetes.
• Optimize high-throughput traffic paths and telemetry pipelines.
• Lead ADRs with customer engineers and CISOs for zero-trust deployments.
• Deploy across multi-cloud, hybrid, or VPC-isolated gateways.
• Troubleshoot live production systems and trace failures.
• Collaborate with Product and SWE to turn patterns into features.

Skills

Leadership

Communication

Customer engagement

Problem solving

Education

Bachelor's or Master's in CS/AI or related field

7+ years software engineering experience

Tools

Python

Go

TypeScript

C++

REST/gRPC APIs

Envoy/Kong

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

OpenTelemetry

Prometheus

LangChain

LlamaIndex

OpenAI Evals

Job description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting‑edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real‑world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us!

We believe collaboration thrives in person. That’s why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it’s needed. This model supports real‑time problem‑solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Job Summary

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) for Prisma AIRS, you are a hands‑on developer and systems architect who embeds with customer engineering teams. You write production code, design low‑latency topologies, and build custom plugins to ship secure enterprise AI workloads to production. You bridge the gap between customer production environments and core engineering, extending the platform edge while directly contributing code back to the core Prisma AIRS engine.

Key Responsibilities

• Write production‑grade code (Python, Go, TypeScript) to integrate Prisma AIRS with microservices, API meshes, and multi‑cloud architectures.
• Build custom middleware/plugins for identity‑aware policies, prompt security, dynamic routing, and telemetry pipelines.
• Develop automated deployment modules (Terraform, Helm, Kubernetes) and SDK wrappers.
• Optimize high‑throughput, low‑latency traffic paths including streaming payloads, caching, and load balancing.
• Lead Architectural Design Reviews (ADRs) with customer Principal Engineers and CISOs for zero‑trust deployments.
• Deploy hybrid, multi‑cloud, or VPC‑isolated gateway topologies across multi‑LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, local vLLM).
• Serve as the tier‑3 engineering point of contact for live production systems, debugging distributed systems bottlenecks.
• Analyze OpenTelemetry/Prometheus traces to diagnose edge‑case failures in AI agent frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, and AutoGen.
• Upstream custom plugins, bug fixes, and edge integrations directly into core product repositories.
• Partner with Product and Core SWE to turn enterprise architectural patterns into platform features.
• Convert customer implementations into reusable reference architectures, deployment patterns, and automation frameworks.
• Identify feature gaps, usability improvements, and operational pain points to influence the product roadmap.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• Education & Experience: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience), or 7+ years of professional software engineering experience writing production‑grade code.
• Core Software & API Development: Expertise in Python (preferred), Go, TypeScript, or C++, with deep experience developing, debugging, and integrating enterprise APIs (REST, gRPC, WebSockets) and API gateways (e.g., Envoy, Kong).
• AI & LLM Architecture: Hands‑on experience with LLM orchestration, prompt security, token optimization, model routing, and vector databases / RAG architectures.
• Infrastructure & Cloud Native: Proficiency with containerization, orchestration, and infrastructure‑as‑code (Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform) across major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Security & Networking: Solid understanding of enterprise security protocols including OIDC/OAuth2, zero‑trust networking, and secure API integration.
• Testing & Quality Assurance: Experience using testing frameworks (e.g., PyTest, unittest) and robust evaluation workflows for distributed systems.
• Customer & Strategic Impact: Proven ability to interface directly with executive leadership (CIOs/CISOs) and IT decision‑makers—whiteboarding enterprise architectures, translating complex customer needs, and directly influencing product roadmaps.
• Engineering Mindset: A hands‑on "0‑to‑1" builder mentality who thrives in ambiguous environments, owns problems end‑to‑end, and enjoys pair‑programming or digging into raw code and traces to solve live outages.

Preferred Qualifications

• AI Evaluation & Frameworks: Familiarity with LLM evaluation frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI Evals) and model performance/benchmarking metrics.
• AI Safety & Adversarial Testing: Practical knowledge of AI security guardrails, bias detection, prompt injection defense, and adversarial testing practices.
• Observability & Monitoring: Hands‑on experience with enterprise observability, tracing, and log‑monitoring systems (e.g., Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus).
• Simulation & Synthetic Data: Exposure to synthetic data generation, automated data pipelines, and test simulation environments.

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/com‑missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

$147,000.00 - $237,500.00/yr

Our Commitment

We’re trailblazers that dream big, 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 [e-mail].

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