Staff Software Engineer: AI-First Platform & Reliability

Palo Alto Networks, Inc.; Boston, Northern (MA, KY); Hybrid; USD 104,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to drive technical execution and own core platform components. You will translate ambiguous requirements into scalable software, integrate AI-first workflows, and ensure production reliability across frontend and backend systems.

You will collaborate with Product and Design to define acceptance criteria, design modular APIs, and write robust tests. This role requires in-office presence in Needham, MA 3x per week and offers a competitive

Qualifications

• 2+ years of professional software engineering experience building, shipping, and maintaining production-grade applications.
• Hands-on experience with the MEAN stack to build enterprise-grade applications.
• Experience deploying and operating scalable solutions on AWS.
• Proficiency with AI-assisted development tools and prompt engineering, with peer-review rigor for correctness, safety and security.
• Experience designing clean APIs, refactoring components, and applying standard design patterns for maintainability.
• Strong debugging skills with robust unit/integration tests, RCA participation, and resolving production issues.
• Ability to clarify requirements, adapt tactics as priorities shift, raise blockers early, and collaborate with PM, Design, and engineering peers.

Responsibilities

• Drive End-to-End Feature Delivery: take ownership of complex feature sets and deliver high-quality solutions end-to-end.
• Implement AI-First Engineering Practices: apply AI tooling fluency and prompt engineering while reviewing AI-generated code for security and correctness.
• Design for Extensibility & Modularity: propose clean designs and APIs, write modular, testable code.
• Practice Defensive & Secure Engineering: handle edge cases early; write integration tests and defensive logic.
• Translate Requirements into Intuitive Workflows: collaborate with Product and Design to deliver seamless frontend and backend implementations.
• Maintain Production Service Excellence: monitor component health, participate in RCAs, and implement durable fixes.
• Foster Team Capability & Knowledge Sharing: document learnings, write RFCs, and keep partners informed.

Skills

AI tooling & code verification

Navigating ambiguity & collaboration

Operational ownership & testing

End-to-end feature delivery

Security-conscious development

Tools

MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js)

AWS

CI/CD pipelines

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) tooling

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Staff Software Engineer to drive technical execution and own core platform components. You will translate ambiguous requirements into scalable software, integrate AI-first workflows, and ensure production reliability across frontend and backend systems.

You will collaborate with Product and Design to define acceptance criteria, design modular APIs, and write robust tests. This role requires in-office presence in Needham, MA 3x per week and offers a competitive