Senior Principal Platform Engineer, Cloud & Tools

Jobs Paloaltonetworks; United States; Hybrid; USD 184,000 - 297,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Sr. Principal Software Engineer to shape technology direction across teams, building large-scale distributed systems, developer platforms, and cloud-native infrastructure. You will mentor engineers, establish standards, and lead modernization efforts while ensuring security and reliability at scale.

The role emphasizes architecture leadership, collaboration with multiple orgs, and driving high-impact initiatives that improve productivity and platform stability.

Qualifications

• 9+ years designing, building, operating large-scale distributed systems and cloud infra.
• 9+ years with major cloud providers and cloud-native architectures.
• 9+ years developing, deploying, operating microservices on Kubernetes.
• 7+ years programming in Python and/or Go.
• Expert in system architecture, scalability, security, observability, and reliability.
• 7+ years IaC, CI/CD, platform engineering, and developer tooling.
• Strong knowledge of software quality practices, testing, and production support.
• Experience leading enterprise-scale technical initiatives.

Responsibilities

• Define and drive long-term technical vision and architecture for developer platforms and tooling.
• Architect and implement scalable, secure infrastructure to support enterprise engineering.
• Write high-quality platform software and set engineering standards.
• Lead design of complex systems with organization-wide impact.
• Serve as primary technical leader for large cross-functional initiatives.
• Lead architecture reviews and design discussions, enforcing best practices.
• Establish standards, reusable frameworks, and reference architectures.
• Provide expert code reviews and mentorship across teams.
• Drive modernization with cloud-native tech, Kubernetes, observability, and automation.
• Lead incident response and production troubleshooting for reliability.
• Promote engineering excellence through CI/CD and developer experience improvements.
• Mentor Principal/Senior/Staff Engineers and foster growth.

Skills

Distributed systems

Cloud infrastructure

Networking

Storage

Compute platforms

Cloud providers (AWS/Azure/GCP)

Kubernetes

Python

Go

IaC / CI/CD

Education

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science / Electrical Engineering or related field

Tools

Kubernetes

CI/CD tooling

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Sr. Principal Software Engineer to shape technology direction across teams, building large-scale distributed systems, developer platforms, and cloud-native infrastructure. You will mentor engineers, establish standards, and lead modernization efforts while ensuring security and reliability at scale.

The role emphasizes architecture leadership, collaboration with multiple orgs, and driving high-impact initiatives that improve productivity and platform stability.