Senior Principal Software Engineer (Foundational Platform)

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

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Principal Software Engineer to lead architectural strategy for high‑scale platform domains (IAM, RBAC, licensing) and drive distributed systems across multi‑region Kubernetes deployments. You will design resilient microservices in Go/Node/Python, enforce strong zero‑trust security, and collaborate with product, SRE, and QA teams to deliver cloud solutions.

The role emphasizes leadership, mentorship, and hands‑on coding, with a focus on modern framework

Qualifications

• 15+ years in enterprise SaaS engineering with leadership roles.
• Deep hands-on experience with high‑concurrency microservices in Go, Node.js, Python.
• Proven expertise with cloud infra, Kubernetes, and distributed systems.
• Strong knowledge of identity standards (OIDC, SAML, OAuth2) and zero‑trust.
• Experience leading multi‑region, multi‑year cloud initiatives.
• Ability to recruit and mentor engineers while delivering complex programs.

Responsibilities

• Architect & evolve platform services across IAM, RBAC, licensing, and orchestration.
• Hands‑on system engineering with microservices design in Go/Node/Python.
• Enforce zero‑trust security and secure service‑to‑service communication.
• Partner with product, SRE, QA, and customer teams to deliver cloud solutions.
• Contribute to shared Go/Node/Python frameworks and SDKs.
• Drive reliability, scalability, latency improvements, and RCA ownership.
• Mentor principal and senior engineers, fostering technical excellence.

Skills

Backend Go/Node/Python

Distributed Data Stores

Async & Workflow

AuthN/AuthZ & Zero-Trust

Cloud Platform & Infra

Leadership & Influence

Frontend & Platform

Tools

GKE/Kubernetes

Terraform

Temporal

OAuth2/OIDC

Istio mTLS

Cloud platforms (GCP/AWS)

Job description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting‑edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us! We believe collaboration thrives in person. That’s why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it’s needed. This model supports real‑time problem‑solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Job Summary

At Palo Alto Networks everything starts and ends with our mission: Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we are looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Your Career:

Help build what is next. Strata Cloud Manager (SCM) is a public cloud delivered management platform to manage all Palo Alto Networks Next generation network security solutions. It’s an easy‑to‑use, scalable and secure platform to operationalize complex deployments using the Palo Alto Networks network security portfolio. At the core of SCM are foundational capabilities powering the Shared Infrastructure ecosystem, including Identity & Access Management, API Gateway, and automated onboarding services.

Senior Principal Software Engineers are:

• Technical experts that help accelerate adoption of the very best engineering practices, while maintaining knowledge on industry innovations, trends and practices.


• Experts who deliver on critical business needs and are recognized across the company as go‑to engineering resources on given domains.


• Role models and mentors who exemplify the best of Palo Alto Networks culture.


• Leaders who can communicate cogently with hands‑on engineers.


• Hands‑on engineers that can code and build great products.

Responsibilities:

• Architect & Evolve Platform Services: Lead the end‑to‑end architectural strategy and design for high‑scale platform domains, including IAM/RBAC, fine‑grained authorization, licensing/entitlement lifecycle, device management, and workflow orchestration.


• Hands‑on System Engineering: Design and build resilient, distributed microservices using Go, Node.js, Python, Google Cloud, and Temporal workflow orchestration.


• Security & Zero‑Trust Architecture: Enforce zero‑trust security patterns across global services, integrating mTLS service‑to‑service authentication, OAuth2.0/OIDC, and fine‑grained authorization models.


• Technical Leadership & Strategy: Partner closely with Product Management, SRE, QA, and customer‑facing teams to deliver robust end‑to‑end cloud solutions in a fast‑paced environment.


• Core Framework & Standards Development: Contribute to shared internal Go, Node, Python frameworks, core client SDKs, event‑driven async patterns, and micro‑frontend platform tooling.


• Operational & Distributed Systems Excellence: Drive reliability initiatives, scalability improvements, latency optimization, and root‑cause analysis for high‑priority incidents across multi‑region Kubernetes (GKE) deployments.


• Talent Development: Recruit, mentor, and guide principal, senior, and mid‑level engineers, fostering a technical culture of high quality and continuous learning.

Qualifications

• Experience: 15+ years of experience building large‑scale enterprise SaaS applications, with 5+ years in lead technical architecture or Staff/Principal engineering roles for cloud‑native platforms.


• Backend Expertise: Deep hands‑on experience building high‑concurrency microservices in Go, Node.js, and Python.


• Distributed Data Stores: Proven expertise with high‑availability relational/transactional datastores (Cloud Spanner, Cloud SQL, AlloyDB) as well as NoSQL engines (Firestore, MongoDB, Redis).


• Async & Workflow Orchestration: Strong background in event‑driven architectures utilizing message brokers (GCP Pub/Sub) and stateful workflow engines (Temporal).


• AuthN / AuthZ & Zero‑Trust: Strong foundation in identity standards (OIDC, SAML, OAuth2), fine‑grained authorization (OPA/OPAL, Permify, RBAC/ABAC), and service‑mesh security (Istio mTLS, client‑cert auth).


• Cloud Platform & Infrastructure: Hands‑on experience with public cloud infrastructure (GCP/AWS), Kubernetes (GKE), Helm packaging, Infrastructure‑as‑Code (Terraform), and modern GitOps CI/CD pipelines.


• Frontend & Platform Ecosystem (Desirable): Exposure to React micro‑frontend architectures (Webpack Module Federation), API Gateway pattern design, or multi‑tenant SaaS licensing systems.


• Leadership & Influence: Proven track record of influencing cross‑functional engineering teams, driving technical consensus, and delivering complex, multi‑year initiatives.

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non‑sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/com‑missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

$183,600.00 - $297,000.00/yr

Our Commitment

We’re trailblazers that dream big, take risks, and challenge cybersecurity’s status quo. It’s simple: we can’t accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at [e-mail].

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship? No.