Principal/Senior Engineer Software - SaaS Data Security (Cortex Cloud)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission-to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us!

Job Summary

In this role, you will be dedicated to safeguarding our clients’ data within the dynamic SaaS landscape. Joining our core Data Protection engineering group, you will drive innovation in SaaS Data Security, building the next generation of an enterprise SaaS data protection platform.

In the SaaS Data Security domain, you will develop comprehensive data discovery, classification, and protection solutions natively integrated with leading business applications (such as Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, and Salesforce). You will tackle complex performance and scale challenges, architecting high-throughput, multi-tenant systems capable of continuously scanning, processing, and accurately classifying high-volume unstructured data across diverse SaaS ecosystems.

You will solve complex architectural challenges-translating conflicting data models and normalizing complex, vendor-specific APIs-to build a single, cohesive security control plane. Your work will enable deep visibility, real-time activity monitoring, and automated remediation to eliminate security blind spots, configuration drift, and unauthorized data exposure across the entire SaaS footprint.

Ultimately, your work will focus on proactively identifying and eliminating risks, ensuring our clients' sensitive information remains secure, compliant, and accessible only to authorized users, empowering them to scale their operations safely.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive innovation by designing and implementing impactful solutions that address client needs, contributing to the full feature development lifecycle from design to deployment.
• Take ownership of specific feature segments, ensuring high-quality code and robust functionality through meticulous attention to detail and a focus on execution.
• Proactively collaborate and exchange information with cross-functional teams, including product and infrastructure, to ensure seamless integration and alignment on shared objectives.
• Challenge the status quo by generating innovative ideas and actively participating in brainstorming sessions to foster product and architectural improvements.
• Actively engage in technical discussions, openly sharing knowledge and learning from others to solve complex problems and elevate team expertise.
• Design and build highly scalable, resilient, and secure cloud-based applications and microservices.
• Contribute to an agile and dynamic engineering culture, demonstrating a strong drive and outstanding communication skills to deliver results efficiently.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• At least 5+ years of hands-on software engineering experience focusing on backend or distributed systems.
• Cloud Architecture & Scale: Proven track record in designing and building resilient, high-throughput cloud-native applications.
• Microservices & Event-Driven Systems: Deep expertise in microservices architecture, asynchronous processing, and container orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker, EKS, GKE, or AKS).
• Data Stores: Strong experience with relational and NoSQL databases (e.g., PostgreSQL, MongoDB, MySQL) and designing efficient schemas for high-volume event data.
• Education: B.Sc. in Computer Science, Software Engineering, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications / Advantage:

• Hands-on experience in backend development using Java or Kotlin (with Spring Boot), or Go (Golang)
• Hands-on experience integrating with multi-tenant SaaS APIs, webhooks, and REST/GraphQL interfaces (e.g., Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, Slack, or Salesforce).
• Experience building data ingestion pipelines, event processing engines, or data normalization mechanisms from multiple external sources.
• Practical experience integrating AI / LLM services or ML-driven insights into production software features.
• Background in data processing frameworks or message brokers (e.g., Kafka, RabbitMQ, SQS).

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 [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.