Principal AI/ML Architect for Autonomous Systems

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

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks’ ADEM group seeks a Principal AI-ML / Data Scientist to anchor the next-gen AIOps platform, bridging advanced AI research with production-grade backend software engineering to turn system telemetry into autonomous, self-healing capabilities.

You will lead intelligent agentive workflows and play a pivotal role in core backend rearchitecture, mentoring teams to deliver planet-scale impact.

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software engineering and production ML deployments at scale.
• Strong Python and Go/Java for backend microservices.
• Experience with SQL, BigQuery schemas, and scalable data pipelines (Dataflow, GKE).
• Knowledge of retrieval systems (RAG), prompt engineering, model evaluation, and statistical modeling.
• Ability to build platform-level services that integrate with adjacent ecosystems (e.g., Prisma Access, Cortex).

Responsibilities

• Design ML/LLM/GenAI-powered agents for planning, execution, and collaboration with humans or agents.
• Build reasoning pipelines, retrieval/knowledge graphs, enabling autonomous task execution and troubleshooting.
• Develop, fine-tune, or adapt LLMs and AI models for agentic workflows; integrate with traditional ML models.
• Drive end-to-end solution development from prototype to production with scalability and observability.
• Create best practices for prompt design, memory management, tools, and context optimization.
• Evaluate emerging agent/framework tooling to inform platform architecture.

Skills

Python for AI/ML

Go or Java

SQL & BigQuery

Dataflow & GKE

RAG / retrieval systems

Prompt engineering

Backend microservices

ML deployment at scale

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science, Data Science, Engineering, or related field

Tools

BigQuery

Dataflow

GKE

Prisma Access

Cortex

Job description

Palo Alto Networks’ ADEM group seeks a Principal AI-ML / Data Scientist to anchor the next-gen AIOps platform, bridging advanced AI research with production-grade backend software engineering to turn system telemetry into autonomous, self-healing capabilities.

You will lead intelligent agentive workflows and play a pivotal role in core backend rearchitecture, mentoring teams to deliver planet-scale impact.