Director, Software Engineering (Network Security)

Company Description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Our Approach to Work

We lead with flexibility and choice in all of our people programs. We have disrupted the traditional view that all employees have the same needs and wants. We offer personalization and offer our employees the opportunity to choose what works best for them as often as possible - from your wellbeing support to your growth and development, and beyond!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work from the office three days per week, leaving two days for choice and flexibility to work where you feel most effective. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. While details may evolve, our goal is to create an environment where innovation thrives, with office-based teams coming together three days a week to collaborate and thrive, together!

Job Description

Your Career

This is a highly motivated and talented team, focused on creating cutting edge solutions that prevent real world cyber security attacks. The focus of this team is the Network Security (NetSec) architecture which involves all packet processing logic; this is the core component of Palo Alto Networks next-generation Firewalls and Prisma Access Cloud solution. Projects will focus on network security, high throughput networking, next generation cluster and data plane / control plane features. The nature of this team involves strong collaboration across multiple product teams.

Your Impact

• Lead high performing Engineering teams responsible for Next Gen Network Security Data plane, Networking, Routing and Clustering Technologies across all NetSec products including Cloud, Data Center, and Enterprise deployments.
• Partner closely with Product Management to help identify and drive customer outcomes.
• Partner with Technology vendors in defining strategic outcomes for NextGen products.
• Identify and execute NetSec Data plane innovations for differentiated customer experiences and outcomes.
• Lead cross-engineering, architecture reviews, and alignment between User Design, Architecture, Engineering, and Product Management teams
• Create product engineering strategy for business and revenue alignment
• Define and regularly review engineering metrics for predictable and repeatable value delivery to customers.
• Lead the engineering team to perform requirements analysis, release planning, Git/Jira issue management, CI/CD process development, software development effort estimation, performance analysis, and delivering world-class scalable and reliable software.
• Grow a diverse and high performing team.

Qualifications

Your Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science (or equivalent experience or equivalent military experience) - Preferably a graduate degree in Computer Science or related engineering field.
• 10+ years of experience in engineering leadership positions, leading large product development teams, resulting in significant business impact.
• 5+ years of hands-on engineering leadership in building Network Technology products - specialization in security is preferred.
• Technical expertise in Data Plane technologies.
• Deep expertise in computer science and an insatiable curiosity to keep learning - Ability to guide the team in making informed, well-analyzed, prudent, and practical technical decisions.
• A proven track record of delivering complex, scalable, and reliable software by leading and mentoring talented cross-functional engineers.
• An elevated sense of ownership and focus on driving business value - A leadership style focused on building relationships, establishing trust with diverse colleagues, executive stakeholders, and business partners.
• Ability to prioritize multiple projects at once and thrive in a fast-paced environment.

Additional Information

The Team

Our engineering team is at the core of our products – connected directly to the mission of preventing cyberattacks. We are constantly innovating – challenging the way we, and the industry, think about cybersecurity. Our engineers don’t shy away from building products to solve problems no one has pursued before.

We define the industry, instead of w