Senior Performance Engineer - Agent (Cortex XDR)

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 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

Your Career

Are you a highly technical individual with a passion for performance engineering? Join our innovative Cortex XDR Agent Performance team as a Senior Performance Engineer!

Our team is responsible for all performance aspects of the Cortex XDR Agent, developing, maintaining, and executing various performance tests to ensure our products are stable, minimize resource impact, and meet our SLA. As a Senior Performance Engineer, you will diagnose performance-related issues in a highly challenging product that is widely deployed in millions of customer environments across Windows, Linux, and macOS. Additionally, you will collaborate closely with different engineering teams to enhance performance test coverage and modernize our approach by heavily automating workflows and integrating smart analytical tools.

Your Impact

• Design, build, and maintain sophisticated Python-based automation frameworks that orchestrate performance tests across diverse endpoint environments (Windows, Linux, macOS, and Kubernetes nodes). Your frameworks will need to simulate complex user behaviors and system stress scenarios.
• Move beyond manual analysis of disparate logs. Proactively leverage AI-driven analytics and GenAI tools to summarize complex, cross-OS performance data, detect anomalies in resource usage trends, and accelerate root cause analysis of hard-to-reproduce issues.
• Go beyond high-level metrics. Take a hands-on approach to diagnosing complex agent performance issues (e.g., memory leaks, high CPU context switching, I/O blocking, or boot time impact). You will use native OS profiling tools to pinpoint bottlenecks at the process or kernel level.
  
  

Qualifications

Your Experience

• 5+ years of experience in performance engineering, with a strong emphasis on endpoint software, system-level testing, or embedded systems rather than just web-application load testing.
• Highly proficient in Python, capable of moving beyond simple scripting to architect maintainable, production-grade software. You have a strong portfolio of building automation systems that interact with OS-level APIs and manage external processes.
• Experience in designing and maintaining CI pipelines (e.g. Jenkins) to automate testing and deployment of complex system-level tools.
• Strong understanding of operating system concepts (processes, threads, memory management, file systems, networking stack) across at least two major platforms (Windows / Mac / Linux). Kubernetes is a must.
• A proven track record of adopting new technologies to work smarter. Specifically, experience leveraging AI/LLM tools within your engineering workflow - for example, using AI to analyze massive system logs, generate test cases based on feature specs, or optimize Python code.
• System Profiling Tooling: Hands-on experience with OS-specific performance and debugging tools
• Deep experience with monitoring stacks (Prometheus, Grafana, etc.)
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills in both Hebrew and English, with the ability to explain complex technical data to varied audiences.
• Ability to work independently in a fast-paced environment and as a collaborative part of a team.
  
  

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 and the products and services that dedicatedly address them. Our engineering team is at the core of our products – connected directly to the mission of preventing cyberattacks. They are constantly innovating – challenging the way we, and the industry, think about cybersecurity. These engineers aren’t shy about building products to solve problems no one has pursued before. They define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment.

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 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.