Principal Software Engineer (Cloud Management)

Job Summary

Must-Have Skills, Experience, or Qualifications:

• Strong programming and scripting skills (Golang, Python, etc).
• Solid understanding of infrastructure and cloud environments (experience with k8s infra context and GCP preferred, AWS experience acceptable).
• Hands-on experience developing and operating cloud-based services.
• Demonstrated willingness and ability to leverage AI tools and agents to improve productivity across research, design, implementation, and operational support activities.
• Experience with observability frameworks and operational monitoring for cloud-native services (metrics, logging, tracing, and alerting).

Product / Technology Stack Overview

The team develops highly scalable cloud applications using Golang in a GCP environment. The role involves working across the full software development lifecycle, including system design, implementation, deployment, and operational support for distributed cloud services.

Desired Soft Skills

• Strong communication skills, with the ability to clearly articulate both high-level system architecture and detailed technical design.
• Strong analytical thinking with close attention to implementation details.
• Able to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams.

Nice-to-Have Skills or Experience

• Security Domain Knowledge: Familiarity with security best practices, risk assessment, and common threat models.
• Configuration Schema Expertise: Experience working with configuration schemas such as JSON, YAML, or XML, especially in the context of security policy enforcement.
• Security Policy & Profiles: Understanding of security policies, access control models, and configuration profiles across operating systems, cloud environments, and enterprise applications.

How Success Is Measured in This Role

• Consistent delivery of high-quality features within planned timelines.
• Effective collaboration and influence across Product Line Management (PLM) and QA teams.
• Ability to manage multiple concurrent tasks within a fast-paced development environment with ongoing CI/CD release cadence.

Role Summary

This role will collaborate closely with senior engineers and, in some cases, operate independently to deliver security posture–related features in partnership with PLM. The engineer will be responsible for the end-to-end development lifecycle, including:

• Requirements analysis
• Technical design
• Implementation
• QA collaboration
• Release and deployment
• Ongoing maintenance and operational support

The role may also involve occasional customer interactions for production support. Participation in the team’s on-call rotation is required.

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

Our Commitment

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.