Cloud-Native Test Architect (AI-Driven)

Palo Alto Networks; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 156,000 - 253,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks in Santa Clara, CA, is seeking a senior test architect to define and drive the automation strategy for Cortex Cloud services. You will build world-class test frameworks in Python/Go/Java/TypeScript and lead complex integration across multi-cloud accounts and Kubernetes clusters.

You’ll embed quality into CI/CD pipelines, perform cloud-scale testing, and mentor engineers while shaping our testing strategy with AI-enabled tooling and data-driven quality metrics.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 6 years focused on test automation, quality engineering, or developer productivity for large-scale distributed systems or SaaS
• Strong programming skills in at least one of Python, Go, or Java, and the ability to write production-quality code, not just scripts
• Proven record of architecting and building test automation frameworks from scratch and scaling them across multiple teams
• Deep hands-on experience with CI/CD systems and practices (GitLab CI, Jenkins, GitHub Actions, or similar), including pipeline design, test parallelization, and environment provisioning
• Strong cloud knowledge across GCP, AWS, and Azure: compute, networking, IAM, storage, managed data services, and cloud-native security concepts
• Solid experience with containers and orchestration (Docker, Kubernetes/GKE/EKS/AKS) and Infrastructure as Code (Terraform, Helm)
• Extensive experience with system, integration, end-to-end, performance, and scale testing of microservices and data pipelines (REST/gRPC APIs, message queues such as Pub/Sub or Kafka, SQL and NoSQL stores, BigQuery or similar)
• End-to-end domain expertise across enterprise cybersecurity systems to lead our overall quality and system validation strategy.
• Excellent troubleshooting skills across the full stack: application, infrastructure, network, and cloud provider layers, using observability tools such as Cloud Logging, Grafana, and tracing
• A demonstrated ability to learn new, complex domains quickly and to deliver in ambiguous, fast-moving environments
• Strong communication skills and the ability to influence technical decisions across organizations without direct authority
• BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent practical experience Big Plus - Hands-on experience building AI agents or LLM-powered applications (for example LangChain, LangGraph, MCP, OpenAI/Anthropic/Gemini APIs, RAG, tool calling, multi-agent orchestration)
• Experience applying AI/ML to engineering workflows such as automated test generation, intelligent failure triage, or log and anomaly analysis
• Experience testing or evaluating AI/LLM-based product features (evaluation frameworks, guardrails, non-deterministic output validation)
• Experience with UI automation frameworks (Playwright, Selenium)
• Experience with security, resilience, or chaos engineering practices

Responsibilities

• Own the test architecture and automation strategy for Cortex Cloud services.
• Build scalable test frameworks and tooling adopted across engineering teams.
• Automate complex multi-cloud integrations and data pipelines.
• Integrate quality gates and test orchestration into CI/CD pipelines.
• Lead cloud-scale, chaos, and performance testing.
• Troubleshoot complex failures across services and clouds.
• Design AI agents and LLm-powered testing tools.
• Mentor senior engineers and influence technical direction.
• Define quality metrics and drive improvements across the system.

Skills

Python

Go

Java

CI/CD

Cloud platforms

Kubernetes

Docker

Terraform

Helm

GitHub Actions

Jenkins

AI/ML

Playwright

Selenium

Observability

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science or Engineering

Tools

GitLab CI

Jenkins

Terraform

Helm

Docker

Kubernetes

GKE

EKS

AKS

GitHub Actions

Job description

Palo Alto Networks in Santa Clara, CA, is seeking a senior test architect to define and drive the automation strategy for Cortex Cloud services. You will build world-class test frameworks in Python/Go/Java/TypeScript and lead complex integration across multi-cloud accounts and Kubernetes clusters.

You’ll embed quality into CI/CD pipelines, perform cloud-scale testing, and mentor engineers while shaping our testing strategy with AI-enabled tooling and data-driven quality metrics.