Lead Penetration Tester — Cloud, Red Team & Automation

Palo Alto Networks; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 152,000 - 246,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks in Santa Clara, CA is seeking a senior penetration tester to conduct comprehensive assessments across cloud-native applications, large-scale infrastructure, and complex networks, covering FedRAMP-mandated vectors. You will lead red team exercises, identify vulnerabilities in cloud services and orchestration platforms, and integrate AI-enabled testing to accelerate threat discovery.

You will advise SRE and Engineering teams on remediation and secure design, mentor junior

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.
• Integrate AI-assisted testing frameworks and LLM-driven automation into penetration testing workflows to accelerate threat discovery, analysis, and exploit development.
• 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.

Job description

Palo Alto Networks in Santa Clara, CA is seeking a senior penetration tester to conduct comprehensive assessments across cloud-native applications, large-scale infrastructure, and complex networks, covering FedRAMP-mandated vectors. You will lead red team exercises, identify vulnerabilities in cloud services and orchestration platforms, and integrate AI-enabled testing to accelerate threat discovery.

You will advise SRE and Engineering teams on remediation and secure design, mentor junior