Lead AI Security Researcher (Runtime)

Palo Alto Networks; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 163,000 - 264,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks seeks a Principal Applied AI Researcher for the Prisma AIRS Runtime Security team. You will architect and deliver enterprise-grade AI threat detection and protection, partnering with product and engineering leadership to drive secure, high‑throughput AI systems.

You will mentor researchers, optimize models for latency and cost, and guide end-to-end deployment in production security pipelines across the organization.

Qualifications

• 8 years of related experience with a Bachelor’s degree; or 6 years and a Master’s degree; or a PhD with 3 years experience.
• Mastery of modern deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch and extensive hands-on experience with modern architectures (Transformers, LLMs).
• Proven experience with the modern LLM stack and a strong understanding of LLM guardrails and alignment techniques.

Responsibilities

• Lead enterprise-grade AI security solutions and optimize accuracy, latency, and efficiency for Prisma AIRS Runtime Security.
• Design scalable AI architectures from lightweight baselines to Transformers for high-throughput security tasks.
• Mentor engineers and researchers while coordinating with product, ML, and QA teams.

Skills

PyTorch

LLMs

Python

Distributed training

Education

Bachelor's degree in related field

Master's degree

PhD

Tools

vLLM

Triton

Job description

Palo Alto Networks seeks a Principal Applied AI Researcher for the Prisma AIRS Runtime Security team. You will architect and deliver enterprise-grade AI threat detection and protection, partnering with product and engineering leadership to drive secure, high‑throughput AI systems.

You will mentor researchers, optimize models for latency and cost, and guide end-to-end deployment in production security pipelines across the organization.