Principal Cloud & AI Platform Engineer (GCP)

Aimlroles; California; On-site; USD 156,000 - 253,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to own the technical vision for an AI-powered platform, shaping agentic workflows and LLM-driven automation within our cloud services on GCP. This is a high-impact role where your decisions influence product direction and team growth.

You will partner with product managers and AI teams to translate business problems into scalable AI solutions, design backend systems on GCP, and set engineering standards for production AI-augmented

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent experience.
• 8+ years of experience with large cloud infrastructure platforms.
• Strong Python and/or GoLang skills.
• Hands-on experience with AI agents or agentic workflows.
• Experience with MCP or similar agent-tool integration patterns.
• Experience with LLMs, prompt engineering, and integrating AI models into backend services.
• Experience with KV caching / semantic layers and optimizing LLM performance.
• Proficient in multi-threaded and distributed systems, microservices, and GCP services.

Responsibilities

• Own the architecture and technical roadmap for AI agentic workflows.
• Design and scale backend systems on GCP with AI capabilities.
• Drive adoption of GCP-native AI tools and define how AI agents are built and shipped.
• Collaborate with product managers, researchers, and AI teams to translate problems into AI solutions.
• Set engineering standards for building, testing, and operating AI-augmented services.
• Mentor engineers to grow cloud and AI expertise.

Skills

Python

GoLang

GCP

Kubernetes

Docker

Vertex AI

Agent Builder

LLMs

Education

BS/MS in CS or related field

Tools

Vertex AI Agent Builder

MCP

Kubernetes

Docker

Pub/Sub

BigQuery

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to own the technical vision for an AI-powered platform, shaping agentic workflows and LLM-driven automation within our cloud services on GCP. This is a high-impact role where your decisions influence product direction and team growth.

You will partner with product managers and AI teams to translate business problems into scalable AI solutions, design backend systems on GCP, and set engineering standards for production AI-augmented