Senior Principal Network Security Engineer (PanOS)

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

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking innovative engineers to design and develop security features for our next‑generation firewalls. As a key member of the Layer‑7 Security group, you will own focus areas, applying your programming skills to solve real‑world security problems and collaborate with product management, QA, and field support throughout the software lifecycle.

You will lead with architectural oversight, mentorship, and a drive to build global products, leveraging CI/CD and automated testing

Qualifications

• 10+ years of professional software development experience in enterprise networking or cybersecurity.
• Proficiency in C, Go, Python in a Linux/Unix environment.
• Experience with multi-threaded programming and distributed server architectures.
• Hands-on TCP/IP networking software development experience.
• Demonstrated end-to-end ownership of complex technical projects.
• Ability to mentor senior engineers and influence technical roadmaps.
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related field (or equivalent practical experience).

Responsibilities

• Architect and implement real-time, high-throughput security services and networking infrastructure.
• Provide technical leadership across end-to-end projects from architecture to deployment.
• Promote secure coding standards, code reviews, and performance tuning.
• Own critical control-plane and data-plane components for GlobalProtect server infrastructure.
• Diagnose and resolve complex server-side and network issues independently.
• Drive test automation, CI/CD integration, and high code coverage.
• Leverage AI-assisted development tools to maximize efficiency.

Skills

C

Go (Golang)

Python

Linux/Unix

Distributed systems

TCP/IP networking

End-to-end ownership

Mentoring engineers

Education

B.S. degree in Computer Science/Computer Engineering or related technical discipline

Tools

RESTful API design

CI/CD pipelines

AI-assisted development tools

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking innovative engineers to design and develop security features for our next‑generation firewalls. As a key member of the Layer‑7 Security group, you will own focus areas, applying your programming skills to solve real‑world security problems and collaborate with product management, QA, and field support throughout the software lifecycle.

You will lead with architectural oversight, mentorship, and a drive to build global products, leveraging CI/CD and automated testing