Principal Software Engineer - Agentix AI (Cortex XSIAM)

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!

We believe collaboration thrives in person. That's why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it's needed. This model supports real-time problem-solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Job Summary

Your career
In this role, you will act as the primary architect of the "nervous system" that bridges the gap between sophisticated AI models and real-world business logic. You will design and maintain the critical infrastructure that enables intelligent, autonomous features to function reliably at scale, moving beyond simple API wrappers to build deeply integrated AI systems. You will take ownership of the entire data flow, where you will develop high-performance RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) pipelines and complex agentic workflows that provide users with accurate, context-aware responses.

Your Impact
Champion system stability by implementing rigorous evaluation and monitoring frameworks, ensuring that as our AI capabilities grow, our production environment remains fast, cost-effective, and secure.

Ultimately, you will be the technical force that transforms cutting-edge AI research into stable, scalable products that define the future of our platform.

Qualifications

Your Experience:

• Keeps up with the latest research and stays on top of the fast-moving AI space, with a real passion for what's happening in Generative AI.
• Regularly tries out different AI tools and sees how they're useful in everyday work and life.
• Strong understanding of advanced prompting techniques like Chain-of-Thought, ReAct, and few-shot prompting.
• Experience working on model quantization or finding ways to optimize inference costs and token usage at scale.
• Hands-on experience with Python (FastAPI, Django, or Flask) or Go, with a solid grasp of async programming and microservices.
• Experience turning a vague product idea (e.g., "let's add a smart assistant") into clear, concrete technical requirements.

Nice to have:

• Hands-on experience using frameworks like LangChain to build more complex LLM flows and agents.
• Experience working with vector databases.
• Comfortable building and using RESTful and GraphQL APIs, especially when dealing with low-latency streaming (WebSockets, Server-Sent Events).
• Enjoys digging into "non-deterministic" systems - when an LLM fails, comfortable figuring out whether it's the prompt, the retrieval, or the data.
• Familiar with AI-specific security risks, like prompt injection and data leakage.

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