Senior Staff Software Engineer, Layer 7 Security & Cloud

Palo Alto Networks; San Jose (CA); On-site; USD 135,000 - 218,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer for Layer 7 security to shape architecture and drive next‑generation security capabilities. You will define system architecture, influence product direction, and lead development of high‑performance software addressing evolving threats.

Candidates should have deep systems programming knowledge, experience with distributed cloud security, and a track record of leadership and delivering complex initiatives.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent practical/military experience.
• 7+ years of professional software engineering experience with senior leadership roles.
• Expert-level proficiency in C and strong proficiency in Go.
• Extensive experience in Unix/Linux environments.
• Proven experience designing and building large-scale distributed systems.
• Deep networking fundamentals including TCP/IP internals and network security.

Responsibilities

• Drive the development of highly scalable, real-time distributed cloud security systems.
• Define and implement robust, high-performance system architectures.
• Set technical direction for critical components ensuring scalability, reliability, and security.
• Lead architecture and collaborate with product management, security research, and platform teams.
• Oversee end-to-end software development lifecycle from concept to deployment and sustainment.
• Mentor engineers and elevate technical capabilities across the organization.
• Identify architectural and tooling gaps and drive organizational improvements.
• Serve as a technical authority for debugging and performance tuning.

Skills

C

Go

Unix/Linux

Distributed systems

Networking fundamentals

Multithreaded design

Data structures & algorithms

Leadership

Communication

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s in Computer Science or related field

Tools

OpenSSL

Python

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer for Layer 7 security to shape architecture and drive next‑generation security capabilities. You will define system architecture, influence product direction, and lead development of high‑performance software addressing evolving threats.

Candidates should have deep systems programming knowledge, experience with distributed cloud security, and a track record of leadership and delivering complex initiatives.