Principal AI Systems Architect & Strategy Leader

Palo Alto Networks, Inc.; Santa Clara (CA); Hybrid; USD 156,000 - 253,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks seeks a Principal AI Systems Engineer & Strategist to bridge high‑level AI strategy with hands‑on, production‑grade autonomous systems engineering. You’ll architect strategy to embed intelligence across the developer lifecycle and design robust harness environments for closed‑loop AI.

You will lead cross‑functional teams, define governance, and drive adoption from pilot to full production, with executive visibility and global scale.

Qualifications

• 7+ years in Software/ML engineering with AI strategy execution.
• Bachelor's or Master's in CS/DS/Engineering or equivalent experience.
• Proven ROI from agentic AI solutions in production.

Responsibilities

• Define strategic roadmap for autonomous AI investments and production readiness.
• Design harness environments with closed-loop control and context handling.
• Lead AI agent workflows from pilot to production with governance.
• Collaborate across engineering, product, legal, and exec leadership.

Skills

Software Engineering

ML Engineering

Applied AI

RAG architectures

LLM orchestration

Governance & security literacy

Stakeholder execution

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science / Data Science / Engineering

Tools

MCP

Function calling

Vector databases

Hybrid search

LLMOps

Job description

Palo Alto Networks seeks a Principal AI Systems Engineer & Strategist to bridge high‑level AI strategy with hands‑on, production‑grade autonomous systems engineering. You’ll architect strategy to embed intelligence across the developer lifecycle and design robust harness environments for closed‑loop AI.

You will lead cross‑functional teams, define governance, and drive adoption from pilot to full production, with executive visibility and global scale.