Lead Offensive Security Architect

Jobs Paloaltonetworks; California (MO); On-site; USD 170,000 - 275,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Offensive Security Engineer to orchestrate on-demand and continuous penetration testing across the portfolio. The role requires strong leadership in red team operations and in-house testing to ensure breadth and depth of coverage across the attack surface.

The candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment with a passion for adversary tradecraft, mentoring teammates and delivering high-impact security outcomes for complex systems.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of professional experience in Offensive Security, Red Teaming, or Penetration Testing.
• Deep technical mastery of at least one major cloud provider (GCP, AWS, or Azure), including identity management and network security controls.
• Experience with multi-tenant SaaS/PaaS isolation testing and authorization-boundary segmentation validation.
• Proven expertise in Kubernetes and Container Security, with the ability to identify flaws in orchestration and runtime environments.
• Strong experience auditing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and CI/CD pipelines for security misconfigurations.
• Hands-on experience leading pentesting, assumed-breach operations: post-exploitation, lateral movement, Active Directory and cloud IdP attack paths, C2 infrastructure, and EDR/XDR evasion.
• Solid understanding of networking protocols, authentication frameworks (LDAP/AD, OAuth, SAML), and modern application security.
• Experience operating within high-compliance or highly regulated environments (e.g., FedRAMP, IL5, SOC2).
• Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK for operation planning and reporting.
• Ability to think creatively and work independently to solve complex security problems in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to influence security outcomes across different business units.

Responsibilities

• Conduct comprehensive penetration tests across a diverse portfolio of cloud-native applications, large-scale infrastructure, and complex network architectures, covering all FedRAMP-mandated attack vectors.
• Execute multi-tenant isolation testing and segmentation validation.
• Identify, exploit, and document vulnerabilities in cloud services, container orchestration platforms, and automated deployment pipelines.
• Plan and lead assumed-breach, objective-based red team operations against systems - including lateral movement, privilege escalation, and persistence - to test the effectiveness of defensive controls, monitoring, and alerting systems.
• Provide expert-level security guidance to SRE and Engineering teams during remediation planning and secure architectural design.
• Lead the security assessment of internal tooling, identity management systems, and third-party integrations.
• Research and develop custom tooling or scripts to automate testing and improve the efficiency of offensive engagements.
• Translate complex technical findings into high-impact reports and presentations for both technical stakeholders and executive leadership.
• Mentor junior team members and act as a subject matter expert on emerging threats and exploitation trends.

Skills

Offensive Security

Red Teaming

Penetration Testing

Cloud Security (GCP/AWS/Azure)

Kubernetes

Container Security

IaC Security

CI/CD Security

AD/LDAP/OAuth/SAML

MITRE ATT&CK

Tools

Kubernetes

Container Security

CI/CD Security

IaC Security

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Offensive Security Engineer to orchestrate on-demand and continuous penetration testing across the portfolio. The role requires strong leadership in red team operations and in-house testing to ensure breadth and depth of coverage across the attack surface.

The candidate thrives in a fast-paced environment with a passion for adversary tradecraft, mentoring teammates and delivering high-impact security outcomes for complex systems.