Senior Principal Backend Engineer, Cortex Platform

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

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Principal Backend Engineer for the Cortex group to lead development of backend systems for Cortex XSOAR, XDR, and XSIAM. You will influence architecture, guide teams, and deliver scalable solutions across thousands of customers.

Join a high-impact organization that blends cutting-edge security Tech with collaborative culture while solving complex cybersecurity challenges at scale.

Qualifications

• 14+ years of professional software engineering experience in distributed, cloud-native development.
• Expert-level programming in Python, Go, or Java with large-scale distributed systems background.
• Extensive cloud development experience including REST APIs, databases, serverless, and microservices.

Responsibilities

• Provide technical leadership across engineering teams and mentors.
• Lead end-to-end project lifecycles from requirements to design and implementation.
• Align work with product management, UX, and engineering stakeholders.
• Design scalable data models and queries with focus on performance.
• Develop robust business logic and API endpoints using Python and Flask (if mentioned) and Go for services.
• Identify and mitigate risks to ensure high-quality delivery.
• Foster a culture of technical excellence and learning.

Skills

Python

Go

Java

Distributed systems

Cloud-native

REST APIs

Microservices

Education

Bachelor's or Master’s in CS/CE

Tools

ElasticSearch

Google Pub/Sub

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Principal Backend Engineer for the Cortex group to lead development of backend systems for Cortex XSOAR, XDR, and XSIAM. You will influence architecture, guide teams, and deliver scalable solutions across thousands of customers.

Join a high-impact organization that blends cutting-edge security Tech with collaborative culture while solving complex cybersecurity challenges at scale.