Principal Engineer, Identity Platform & AI-Driven Systems

Palo Alto Networks; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 156,000 - 253,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior/Principal Engineer for the Identity Platform to architect resilient, distributed systems and own major cross-team initiatives. You will drive design decisions, enforce security and performance standards, and mentor engineers while leveraging AI-enabled development tools.

The role emphasizes in-person collaboration at the office with flexible arrangements when needed, and involves partnering with product and support teams to translate customer needs into

Qualifications

• 12+ years of professional software engineering experience and a Tech Lead/Principal Engineer track record.
• 8+ years architecting large-scale, cloud-native applications and microservices.
• Hands-on proficiency with AI-assisted development tools to accelerate design, implementation, and debugging.
• Deep expertise in enterprise backend development using .NET / C# and web services (REST, SOAP).
• Knowledge of authentication/identity standards (SAML, WS-Fed, OpenID Connect, OAuth).
• Experience designing and operating microservices on Docker/Kubernetes with autoscaling and observability.
• Strong communication skills to articulate complex technical decisions to technical and executive audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Identity Platform’s technical strategy and end-to-end ownership of cross-team initiatives.
• Make architecture decisions in fast-moving, ambiguous conditions and align stakeholders.
• Set and enforce engineering standards for security, scalability, and performance.
• Prototype and build new platform components and PoCs with secure, testable code.
• Apply AI/ML to automate incident detection and remediation.
• Collaborate with Product, Infra, and Support to translate customer needs into scalable designs.
• Mentor engineers and participate in hiring to attract top talent.
• Champion AI-augmented engineering with modern tools while safeguarding data privacy and security.

Skills

Distributed systems design

AI-assisted development tools

Cloud architecture

C# / .NET

Docker / Kubernetes

Security & threat modeling

Mentoring & code reviews

Executive communication

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

Docker

Kubernetes

AWS EKS / GKE / AKS

GitHub Copilot

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior/Principal Engineer for the Identity Platform to architect resilient, distributed systems and own major cross-team initiatives. You will drive design decisions, enforce security and performance standards, and mentor engineers while leveraging AI-enabled development tools.

The role emphasizes in-person collaboration at the office with flexible arrangements when needed, and involves partnering with product and support teams to translate customer needs into