Senior Principal Backend Engineer, Cortex Platform

Palo Alto Networks, Inc.; California; On-site; USD 184,000 - 297,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is seeking a Senior Principal Backend Engineer for the Cortex group. You’ll lead backend development for industry-leading products like Cortex XSOAR, XDR, and XSIAM, shaping data pipelines, analytics, and APIs.

You will design scalable data models, build robust services in Python/Flask and Go, and mentor engineers across the department to deliver high-quality security solutions for thousands of customers.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field.

Responsibilities

• Serve as an acknowledged technical leader, providing consultation and proactively collaborating across engineering teams to ensure alignment.
• Drive the full lifecycle of projects from requirements gathering to final design and implementation, acting as a project lead or mentor.
• Lead the alignment of planned work across the product by partnering with product management, UX design, and engineering stakeholders.
• Utilize a big‑picture perspective to identify, analyze, and provide practical solutions for complex existing and impending technical problems.
• Design, build, and optimize highly scalable data models and queries using technologies such as MySQL and BigQuery, focusing on the details to ensure performance.
• Develop robust business logic and API endpoints using Python and Flask, and build high‑performance backend services using Go.
• Proactively identify, articulate, and mitigate risks in projects to ensure smooth execution and high‑quality output.
• Mentor and empower other engineers across the department, fostering a culture of technical excellence and applied learning.

Skills

Python

Go

Java

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

REST APIs

Microservices

Architect/Technical lead

BigQuery

MySQL

Flask

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related technical field

Tools

Flask

BigQuery

MySQL

ElasticSearch

Google Pub/Sub

Job description

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is seeking a Senior Principal Backend Engineer for the Cortex group. You’ll lead backend development for industry-leading products like Cortex XSOAR, XDR, and XSIAM, shaping data pipelines, analytics, and APIs.

You will design scalable data models, build robust services in Python/Flask and Go, and mentor engineers across the department to deliver high-quality security solutions for thousands of customers.