Sr Staff Security Researcher (Advanced Threat Prevention)

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

You will be part of the team that builds and delivers the threat detection capabilities powering Palo Alto Networks’ Advanced Threat Prevention (ATP). The ATP Detection team is responsible for decoding network protocols, identifying applications, and detecting threats across our enterprise customers’ networks.

As a Sr. Staff Security Researcher, you will not only contribute to detection development, but also drive your own innovative research ideas from concept to production, and take ownership of at least one major project. You will collaborate closely with peers and cross-functional partners to strengthen our detection technologies and directly protect customers from advanced threats.

Your Impact

• Propose and execute innovative detection ideas, bringing them from research into production.

• Lead at least one operational or research project end-to-end, ensuring quality and timely delivery.

• Conduct in-depth research into vulnerabilities, attack vectors, and exploit techniques, and translate findings into effective IPS/ML-based detections.

• Respond rapidly to Zero-Day vulnerabilities by developing and shipping protections within 24 hours.

• Reverse engineer software to uncover new vulnerabilities and deliver actionable intelligence.

• Collaborate with engineering, QA, and product teams to ensure scalable, robust detection methodology.

• Mentor junior team members, providing technical guidance and raising the overall bar of the team.

Qualifications

Your Experience 

• Strong collaborator with excellent communication skills and ability to work across cross-functional groups.

• Deep understanding of exploit techniques such as buffer overflows, use-after-free, format string, XSS, SQL injection, CSRF, MITM, and DoS.

• Strong knowledge of core network protocols including HTTP, UDP, FTP, SMTP, DNS, and SMB.

• Skilled in analyzing network traffic using tcpdump, Wireshark, or equivalent tools.

• Experience with AI/ML in security is a plus.

• Proficient in Windows and Linux development environments.

• Strong programming background with scripting languages (e.g., Python, Bash, Perl); experience with penetration testing tools (Metasploit, Burp Suite, Nmap) and debugging tools (WinDbg, OllyDbg, GDB) is a strong plus.

• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or equivalent professional/military experience.

• CTF experience is a plus.

• Publications or presentations at top security venues (e.g., Black Hat, DEF CON) are highly valued.

• Proven ability to independently drive an idea into a delivered solution or project.

Additional Information

The Team

We are on a mission to build the industry's best Security large languag