Senior Principal Backend Architect: Cloud APIs & Data

Palo Alto Networks; Santa Clara (CA); On-site; USD 184,000 - 297,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Principal Backend Engineer to lead the backend for our unified vulnerability and exposure management module in XSIAM. You will influence architecture, scale data models, and deliver high‑impact solutions across thousands of customers.

Join a motivated team focused on Cortex Platform workloads, REST APIs, and cloud-native services, with a culture of collaboration, mentorship, and technical excellence in a hybrid office environment.

Qualifications

• 14+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Expert-level skills in Python, Go, or Java.
• Cloud-native development with REST APIs, databases, serverless, and microservices.

Responsibilities

• Serve as a technical leader, advising across engineering teams for alignment.
• Lead full project lifecycles from requirements to design and implementation.
• Align work with product management, UX, and engineering stakeholders.
• Analyze and solve complex technical problems with a big-picture view.
• Design, build, and optimize scalable data models and queries (MySQL, Spanner, BigQuery).
• Develop business logic and API endpoints using Python and FastAPI; Go backend services.
• Identify and mitigate project risks to ensure timely, quality output.
• Mentor engineers and promote technical excellence across the department.

Skills

Python/Go/Java

Education

Bachelor's or Master's degree in CS/CE

Tools

BigQuery

Google Pub/Sub

REST APIs

Databases

Serverless

Microservices

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Principal Backend Engineer to lead the backend for our unified vulnerability and exposure management module in XSIAM. You will influence architecture, scale data models, and deliver high‑impact solutions across thousands of customers.

Join a motivated team focused on Cortex Platform workloads, REST APIs, and cloud-native services, with a culture of collaboration, mentorship, and technical excellence in a hybrid office environment.