Principal Engineer Software, Dev Infrastructure (Chronosphere)

About the role

The Team Chronosphere, a Palo Alto Networks company, is the observability platform built for control in the modern, containerized world. Chronosphere empowers customers to focus on the data and insights that matter by reducing complexity, optimizing costs, and remediating issues faster. Chronosphere reduces data volumes and associated costs by 84% on average while saving developers thousands of hours. Recognized as a leader by major analyst firms, Chronosphere is trusted by the world's most innovative brands, including DoorDash, Affirm, and Zillow.

Responsibilities

• Architect & Build: Design and maintain high-scale developer tooling and backend services that improve productivity and reliability across a distributed cloud environment.
• Treat infrastructure as a first-class citizen. You will define, deploy, and manage entire environments using declarative IaC (Terraform), ensuring our platform is reproducible and version-controlled.
• Drive Systemic Quality: Identify and eliminate systemic bottlenecks in the software development lifecycle (SDLC) through architectural changes or advanced tooling.
• Scale & Reliability: Ensure our infrastructure remains resilient under massive traffic loads while optimizing for performance, cost-efficiency, and near-real-time telemetry processing.
• Strategic Leadership & Mentorship: Define platform standards and reference architectures that span a 1–3 year horizon, balancing feature velocity with long-term technical debt. Act as the "glue" across teams, consulting on infrastructure best practices and up-leveling the organization through mentorship.

Requirements

• 8+ years of relevant experience with the following:
• Foundational Technical Proficiency: Strong experience in at least one backend language (e.g., Go, Java, Python, or Rust). We value fluency and the ability to write modular, testable code over knowing a specific syntax.
• Strong proficiency in at least one backend language (e.g., Go, Java, Python, or Rust). We prioritize the ability to write modular, testable code over knowledge of a specific language syntax.
• Deep Systems Expertise: You go beyond "using" the cloud; you understand how it works. This includes: Cloud-Native: A solid understanding of cloud-native concepts and experience working with cloud providers like AWS or GCP. You should be comfortable navigating Kubernetes and container-level logic. Operating Systems & Compute: Deep knowledge of Linux internals, process management, and resource isolation. Networking & Security: Understanding of the OSI model, service meshes, load balancing, and "zero-trust" security architectures. Distributed Systems: Experience building and debugging systems that deal with CAP theorem trade-offs, eventual consistency, and distributed tracing. Reliable Execution: A track record of completing assigned tasks/tickets reliably and estimating work effectively within a sprint. You take ownership of features from local development through to basic testing and delivery. Analytical Debugging & Quality: The ability to debug your own code efficiently using logs and tests, while proactively identifying edge cases (like nulls or limits) during the design phase. Collaborative Spirit: Strong communication skills to keep teammates informed, raise blockers early, and contribute meaningfully to code reviews and design discussions. Continuous Learning: A proactive approach to learning new tools, processes, and libraries. You are open to feedback and use incidents or code reviews as opportunities to up-level your skills. AI-Native Development: You embrace the future of engineering. Experience or interest in using AI coding assistants (like Cursor or Claude) to improve productivity and automate boilerplate tasks.

Qualifications

• Required Qualifications

Skills

• Foundational Technical Proficiency: Strong experience in at least one backend language (e.g., Go, Java, Python, or Rust).
• Strong proficiency in at least one backend language (e.g., Go, Java, Python, or Rust).
• Deep Systems Expertise: You go beyond "using" the cloud; you understand how it works. This includes: Cloud-Native: A solid understanding of cloud-native concepts and experience working with cloud providers like AWS or GCP. You should be comfortable navigating Kubernetes and container-level logic. Operating Systems & Compute: Deep knowledge of Linux internals, process management, and resource isolation. Networking & Security: Understanding of the OSI model, service meshes, load balancing, and "zero-trust" security architectures. Distributed Systems: Experience building and debugging systems that deal with CAP theorem trade-offs, eventual consistency, and distributed tracing. Reliable Execution: A track record of completing assigned tasks/tickets reliably and estimating work effectively within a sprint. You take ownership of features from local development through to basic testing and delivery. Analytical Debugging & Quality: The ability to debug your own code efficiently using logs and tests, while proactively identifying edge cases (like nulls or limits) during the design phase. Collaborative Spirit: Strong communication skills to keep teammates informed, raise blockers early, and contribute meaningfully to code reviews and design discussions. Continuous Learning: A proactive approach to learning new tools, processes, and libraries. You are open to feedback and use incidents or code reviews as opportunities to up-level your skills. AI-Native Development: You embrace the future of engineering. Experience or interest in using AI coding assistants (like Cursor or Claude) to improve productivity and automate boilerplate tasks.

Benefits

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 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. $147,000.00 - $237,500.00/yr

Pay

$147,000.00 - $237,500.00/yr

Schedule

Remote

Skills

• Foundational Technical Proficiency: Strong experience in at least one backend language (e.g., Go, Java, Python, or Rust).
• Strong proficiency in at least one backend language (e.g., Go, Java, Python, or Rust).
• Deep Systems Expertise: You go beyond "using" the cloud; you understand how it works. This includes: Cloud-Native: A solid understanding of cloud-native concepts and experience working with cloud providers like AWS or GCP. You should be comfortable navigating Kubernetes and container-level logic. Operating Systems & Compute: Deep knowledge of Linux internals, process management, and resource isolation. Networking & Security: Understanding of the OSI model, service meshes, load balancing, and "zero-trust" security architectures. Distributed Systems: Experience building and debugging systems that deal with CAP theorem trade-offs, eventual consistency, and distributed tracing. Reliable Execution: A track record of completing assigned tasks/tickets reliably and estimating work effectively within a sprint. You take ownership of features from local development through to basic testing and delivery. Analytical Debugging & Quality: The ability to debug your own code efficiently using logs and tests, while proactively identifying edge cases (like nulls or limits) during the design phase. Collaborative Spirit: Strong communication skills to keep teammates informed, raise blockers early, and contribute meaningfully to code reviews and design discussions. Continuous Learning: A proactive approach to learning new tools, processes, and libraries. You are open to feedback and use incidents or code reviews as opportunities to up-level your skills. AI-Native Development: You embrace the future of engineering. Experience or interest in using AI coding assistants (like Cursor or Claude) to improve productivity and automate boilerplate tasks.

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 accommodations@paloaltonetworks.com. 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