Principal Software Engineer (NGFW System Infrastructure and Platform 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.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

Job Description

Your Career

We're seeking innovators - software engineers who seek to design new products, designing state-of-the-art products that do not exist today. These engineers love to code with a drive to build global products and bring new ideas to develop security disciplines to solve real-world problems. We are looking for leaders who take ownership of their areas of focus and who are driven to pursue problems at every level. Collaboration is at the heart of our culture and we need engineers who can communicate at a high level and work well with multi-functional teams towards achieving a common goal.

As a key member of the Next-Gen Firewall (NGFW) System Infrastructure and Platform Security team, you will be responsible for designing and developing high performance and scalable core systems and building industry leading platform security for NGFW, which powers all next-gen firewall products at Palo Alto Networks. You will be part of a world-class multi-functional software engineering team that works on various ground-breaking technologies.

Your Impact

• Innovate, design, and develop core system infrastructure (e.g. IPC infrastructure, clustering, HA, software upgrade, OS/Kernel) and security infrastructure/services. 

• Contribute in all phases of the software development cycle, from definition, design, through implementation and test

• Develop functional specifications, assess task requirements and scheduling, and contribute to development, debugging and support

• Identify and drive improvements in existing software and development process

Qualifications

Your Experience 

• B.S. or M.S. degree in Computer Science, similar technical discipline or equivalent practical experience or equivalent military experience required

• 8+ years experience in embedded programming, infrastructure, security, Linux kernel/OS, and platform software

• Experience developing, integrating and delivering product features or system components on Linux-based systems

• Expertise in security such as OS/application security, secure boot, software/file/data integrity,  access control (e.g.SeLinux), PQC, IMA, Intrusion Detection/reporting/auditing/remediation, VM/container security, etc, 

• Strong C/C++ coding/debugging skills

• Strong scripting skills with bash and python

• Experience with OS, Clustering and HA is a plus

• Experience with improving performance/scale,  memory usage and boot-time s is a plus

• Strong verbal and written communication skills to work with multi-functional groups

Additional Information

The Team

To stay ahead of the curve, it’s critical to know where the curve is, and how to anticipate the changes we’re facing. For the fastest growing cybersecurity company, the curve is the evolution of cyberattacks,