Sr Staff Engineer Software (Backend Platform Applications Prisma AIRS)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.
Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

Your Career

With Prisma AIRS, Palo Alto Networks is building the world's most comprehensive AI security platform. Organizations are increasingly building complex ecosystems of AI models, applications, and agents, creating dynamic new attack surfaces with risks that traditional security approaches cannot address. In response, Prisma AIRS delivers model security, posture management, AI red teaming, and runtime protection. Our customers can confidently deploy AI-driven innovation while ensuring a formidable security posture from development through runtime.

We are looking for a highly skilled and experienced Senior Staff Engineer to join the Prisma AIRS shared services team, specifically focused on platform applications. In this role, you will play a crucial part in designing, developing, and optimizing robust, scalable, and high-performance backend systems that power our cutting-edge AI security platform.

This role is located at our dynamic downtown Seattle office, and in office 3 days a week. This is not a remote role.

Your Impact

• Collaborate with product managers, frontend software engineers, product designers, and infrastructure software engineers to ensure the success of the Prisma AIRS organization

• Design and build innovative and solid products to ensure our customers can use AI securely

• Own new features/functionality from start to finish. Participate in all phases of the product development cycle, from definition, design, through implementation and test. Ensure that applications are production-ready, scalable, and reliable.

• Design, build, and operate production security services

• Develop expertise in new technologies

Your Experience 

• Expertise in at least one strongly typed programming language (Go (preferred!), or Java, C#, C++) or modern Python (type hints, Pydantic, etc)

• Experience writing comprehensive unit and end-to-end tests

• Experience in designing large distributed system and web services in the cloud

• Deep knowledge in the public cloud (GCP, AWS, or OCI) is a plus

• Experience with CI/CD pipelines, GitLab and GitHub is a plus

• Experience partnering with front end engineers (collaborate on schema required to power a UI, for example) is a plus

• Excellent written and verbal communication, able to collaborate and rally support

• Self-disciplined, self-managed, self-motivated, and strong sense of ownership, urgency, and drive

• Ready to understand and dissect new technology stacks quickly

• Excited about working in an agile and fast paced environment.

• BS or MS in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent professional experience or equivalent military experience 

The Team

Our engineering team is at the core of our products – connected directly to the mission of preventing cyberattacks. We are constantly innovating – challenging how we and the industry think about cybersecurity. Our engineers don’t shy away from building products to solve problems no one has pursued before.

We define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of a challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment.

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/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $135000 - $155,000/YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

Our Commitment

We’re problem solvers that 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  [email protected].

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?: Yes