Senior Director Software Engineering (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!

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 Description

The Team

Our team is a group of talented and mission-driven backend engineers who build and scale the core of Cortex XDR and Cloud Workload Protection. We work in close collaboration with product, platform, and research teams to deliver advanced cybersecurity solutions that protect organizations worldwide. The team thrives on solving complex challenges, driving innovation with AI-powered capabilities, and ensuring the highest standards of performance, security, and reliability.

Job Summary

At Palo Alto Networks, we lead the way in cybersecurity innovation. Our Cortex XDR and Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) product offers a holistic solution that protects your entire digital infrastructure, from user endpoints to cloud environments. We deliver comprehensive, end-to-end security by monitoring and analyzing everything—from endpoint activity and user behavior to network traffic, cloud workloads, and containers. Through continuous threat detection and proactive incident response, we offer a unified approach to Extended Detection and Response (XDR), ensuring the identification, analysis, and prioritization of security risks across your entire enterprise.

As the Software Engineering Sr. Director, you will lead multiple backend engineering teams and groups dedicated to building and maintaining our industry-leading cybersecurity products. You will define and drive the vision and strategy for software development, ensuring the highest delivery standards of quality, security, and scalability. In close collaboration with product management, platform teams, and security researchers, you will guide the delivery of innovative, reliable solutions that address the evolving needs of our customers. A key part of your mission will be to harness AI-embedding AI-powered capabilities into both our products and engineering practices to secure the future of software development.

Key Responsibilities

• Engineering Leadership: Lead and mentor BE engineering teams, driving recruitment, retention, and talent development. Foster a culture of collaboration and innovation
• Product Development: Oversee the design and delivery of secure, scalable software solutions, ensuring best practices in security throughout the development lifecycle
• Collaboration: Work closely with product, security research, endpoint engineering and platform teams to align engineering with business goals and customer needs
  
  

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of Software Engineering experience
• 8+ years of managing multiple software engineering teams
• Experience with high scale & critical systems backend engineering
• Demonstrated ability to lead through organizational change, balancing strategy with execution.
• Proven track record of delivering complex, secure, and scalable SaaS products.
• B.Sc. or M.Sc. in Computer Science, Software and Computer Engineering, or equivalent military experience required
• Detailed oriented with an ability to drill down into the technical bits and bytes while enabling your employees to deliver.
  
  

Advantage

• Experience in the cybersecurity domain, with a solid understanding of security.
• Additional Information
  
  

Additional Information

Our Commitment

We’re problem solvers that 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.