Principal Security & Detections Engineer, AI Platform

Palo Alto Networks, Inc.; Santa Clara (CA); Hybrid; USD 170,000 - 250,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Security Engineer to lead the AIRS team's efforts in building high-performance AI/ML infrastructure and distributed backend systems. You will own end-to-end signature development and threat detection lifecycle on a role that blends research and deployment.

The position is hybrid, based on-site at our Santa Clara, CA headquarters, with 3x/week on-site collaboration. You will partner with threat research and ML teams to advance state-of-the-art defenses.

Qualifications

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Cyber Security, or equivalent practical experience with 8+ years of dedicated experience in detection engineering, threat analysis, or security research.
• Deep expertise in writing and optimizing signature-based patterns.
• Strong knowledge of the detection-as-code philosophy and automated testing pipelines for signature validation.

Responsibilities

• Analyze multi-stage attack behavior sequences and transform them into precise, deterministic signatures.
• Develop and maintain high-performance signatures that can be safely enforced by inline engines without impacting network throughput.
• Own the entire signature lifecycle, from initial research and threat modeling to deployment, automated regression testing, and deprecation.
• Drive continuous False Positive tuning and validation processes to minimize alert fatigue while maximizing true positive detection rates.
• Implement robust version pinning strategies and dependency management for threat prevention content updates, ensuring consistency across distributed firewall deployments.
• Partner with threat research groups and inline machine learning teams to integrate behavioral signatures with automated deep learning classifiers.

Skills

Signature development

Evasion defense

Detection-as-Code

Threat analysis

Education

BS/MS in Computer Science or Cyber Security

Tools

Python

Regex

MITRE ATT&CK

OWASP Top 10 for LLMs

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Security Engineer to lead the AIRS team's efforts in building high-performance AI/ML infrastructure and distributed backend systems. You will own end-to-end signature development and threat detection lifecycle on a role that blends research and deployment.

The position is hybrid, based on-site at our Santa Clara, CA headquarters, with 3x/week on-site collaboration. You will partner with threat research and ML teams to advance state-of-the-art defenses.