Sr Staff Cross-Platform C++ Engineer (Cortex XDR)

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 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

We are looking for a Senior Staff C++ Engineer to join our Tel Aviv R&D center and take a key engineering role within the Cross Platform Agent team.

The team is responsible for the development of the Cortex XDR Agent - a disruptive anti-exploit and anti-malware solution that serves as the “boots on the ground” for Palo Alto Networks’ endpoint protection portfolio and underpins most Cortex products. The Cross Platform group owns the endpoint layer, building and maintaining a high-performance, cross-platform agent for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and continuously delivering new capabilities that improve security, stability, and performance across millions of endpoints.

More information about Endpoint Protection products can be found here.

While the core development is done in modern, high-performance C++, the team is also responsible for the Defender, which includes cloud-native components implemented in Go (Golang). Experience with Go is an advantage, while strong cloud-native expertise is essential.

In this role, you will be deeply involved in the design and implementation of core agent components, with a strong focus on reliability, performance, and correctness across both endpoint environments and large-scale distributed platforms, including Kubernetes, containers, and serverless architectures.

This position is well-suited for an experienced individual contributor who enjoys working close to the system, owning complex problems end-to-end, and delivering production-grade solutions that run at massive scale across cloud workloads and endpoints.

Your Impact

Lead the design and implementation of critical Cortex Agent components deployed across endpoint platforms (Windows, macOS, Linux) and cloud-native environments.

Build and maintain high-quality, production-grade software in modern, high-performance C++, owning the full lifecycle from design and implementation through automated test development and production support, including the handling of escalated cases.

Own the ongoing maintenance, hardening, and operational stability of the Defender in cloud-native environments.

Own the reliability and operational stability of the Defender components written in Go (Golang), focusing on production support, incident investigation, root-cause analysis, and hardening in large-scale cloud-native customer environments

Address complex security, reliability, and performance challenges across large-scale endpoint fleets and distributed cloud environments, including Kubernetes, containers, and container runtimes.

Investigate and resolve complex production and field issues, translating operational insights into scalable, resilient, and efficient system improvements.

Raise the bar on engineering quality by effectively leveraging AI tools in software engineering, leading pragmatic design discussions, conducting focused code reviews, and continuously improving system robustness, correctness, and performance.

Qualifications

Your Experience

5+ years of hands-on experience developing production-grade systems in modern C++ (C++14/17/20).

Strong problem-solving skills and a proactive, hands-on mindset; able to work independently, operate effectively in ambiguous problem spaces, and collaborate to drive technical alignment within a team.

Proven ability to design, build, and own complex software components, contributing across the full software development lifecycle - from design through production support

Solid experience with multi-threaded and multi-process systems, with a strong focus on performance, scalability, and efficient CPU and memory utilization.

Experience working in cloud-native environments, including Kubernetes, containers, and container runtimes (e.g., Docker, CRI-O).

B.Sc. in Computer Science or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Qualifications (Advantages)

Background in cybersecurity, particularly in endpoint security, cloud security, EDR, or CDR systems.

Experience working with Go (Golang).

Understanding of Linux OS internals, including processes, memory management, syscalls, and userspace-kernel interactions, particularly in the context of cloud workloads.

Experience with low-level Linux observability or tracing technologies (e.g. ptrace, perf, fanotify).

Hands-on experience with major cloud providers (AWS, GCP, Azure and etc.) and their compute platforms (VMs, containers, serverless).

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 tackle problems no one has pursued before. They define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We are looking for individuals who feel comfortable with ambiguity, are excited by the prospect of challenge, and are empowered by addressing the unknown risks facing our everyday lives-risks inherent to a digital world and mitigated through a secure digital environment.

Our engineering team is provided with an unrivaled chance to create the products and practices that will support our company growth over the next decade, defining the cybersecurity industry as we know it. If you see the potential of how incredible people's products can transform a business, this is the team for you. If you don’t wait for directions, instead, identifying new features and opportunities we have to just get better, this is your new career.

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.