Principal Engineer Software

About the role

Your career as a Distinguished AI Engineer in the Office of the CTO (OCTO) involves shaping the next generation of AI-powered security and developer-productivity solutions. You will lead exploratory research, rapid prototyping, and cross-functional pilots that integrate state-of-the-art foundation models with Palo Alto Networks' security platforms.

Responsibilities

• Drive end-to-end AI integrations with industry-leading foundation models (e.g., current frontier LLMs) across text, code, image, and multimodal domains.
• Prototype and benchmark MCP and A2A protocols to enable dynamic orchestration of multiple agents and tools.
• Lead context engineering & prompt design for RAG and agentic workflows; create evaluation harnesses to measure accuracy, latency, and cost.
• Build proof-of-concepts that embed AI throughout the software development lifecycle (SDLC)—planning, coding, code review, testing, and release—to quantify productivity gains.
• Research and validate AI-driven cybersecurity use cases (e.g., threat-hunting copilots, real-time anomaly triage) and partner with product groups to harden prototypes for production.
• Instrument metrics pipelines that track developer and security analyst outcomes to demonstrate ROI of AI initiatives.
• Craft executive-level narratives, demos, and visualizations that clearly communicate innovation roadmaps, technical trade-offs, and business impact.
• Mentor senior engineers and researchers; foster a culture of experimentation, responsible AI, and security-first thinking.
• Lead strategic external partnerships and technical advocacy, collaborating with major industry partners to shape defensive AI product roadmaps.
• Engage with policy and ethics working groups to ensure responsible and compliant AI deployment, including navigating legal and corporate communications reviews.

Requirements

You must have 10+ years of software/ML engineering experience, with 2+ years leading applied Generative AI or LLM initiatives at scale. Proven expertise in large and multimodal models, distributed systems, and MLOps is required. Programming skills in Python (plus one of Go, Java, Javascript) and hands-on experience integrating AI into developer tooling are essential. A deep understanding of cybersecurity concepts and ability to translate them into AI features is also necessary. Strong communication skills and experience mentoring and leading technical teams are required.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's or higher degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field.
• Master's or PhD degree or equivalent military experience.
• Proven track record of mentorship and technical leadership across organizational boundaries.

Skills

Expertise in large and multimodal models, distributed systems, and MLOps; proficiency in programming languages such as Python, Go, Java, and JavaScript; hands-on experience integrating AI into developer tooling; deep understanding of cybersecurity concepts; strong communication skills; experience with cloud AI stacks (GCP Vertex, AWS SageMaker, Azure ML) and vector databases; ability to translate cybersecurity concepts into AI features; and experience with policy and ethics working groups.

Benefits

N/A

Pay

N/A

Schedule

N/A

Equal Opportunity Employer

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.

Is Role Eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?

No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.