Palo Alto Networks

Sr Staff Engineer Software

Palo Alto Networks$126K — $204K *
Information Technology
Less than 5 years of experience
Job Overview by Ladders

Qualifications

  • Deep hands-on experience building enterprise-grade applications using the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js).
  • Proven track record architecting, deploying, and operating scalable solutions within the AWS ecosystem.
  • Expertise in AI tooling and prompt/context engineering with a focus on rigorous output verification.
  • Demonstrated ability to navigate ambiguity and adapt technical strategies to align with business objectives.
  • Strong foundation in designing clean APIs and making architectural trade-offs for scalability.
  • Extensive experience in debugging production services and conducting root cause analyses.
  • Skilled in cross-functional collaboration, mentoring, and writing clear technical documentation.

Responsibilities

  • Take ownership of complex feature delivery by breaking down work and reducing cycle time.
  • Apply AI-first engineering practices and evaluate AI-generated code to ensure robustness.
  • Design clear system interfaces and extensible logic to minimize maintenance burdens.
  • Enforce defensive coding practices to enhance software security and reliability.
  • Collaborate with PM and Design to simplify user workflows based on product requirements.
  • Drive root cause analysis on production incidents and implement durable fixes to improve service health.
  • Share knowledge and run technical experiments to uplift team capabilities.

Benefits

  • In-office work requirement of three days per week for enhanced team collaboration.
Full Job Description
Job Summary

*THIS ROLE HAS AN IN OFFICE 3 DAYS PER WEEK REQUIREMENT*

We are seeking a Senior Staff Software Engineer to advance the architectural evolution and technical direction of our platform. In this role, you will tackle high-ambiguity technical challenges, set the engineering vision, and pioneer AI-first development workflows to accelerate feature delivery and elevate software quality. You will take end-to-end ownership of critical system capabilities-designing for scale, optimizing cycle times, and establishing resilient security and operational patterns.

What You'll Do

  • Drive End-to-End Feature Delivery: Take complete ownership of complex, end-to-end feature delivery by breaking down work, managing commitments, and systematically reducing cycle time and rework.
  • Lead AI-First Engineering Practices: Apply high AI tool fluency and prompt/context engineering to design AI-assisted workflows across the agentic SDLC. Rigorously evaluate AI-generated code to prevent hallucinations, security gaps, and logic defects.
  • Architect for Scale & Extensibility: Design clear system interfaces and extensible logic that minimize maintainer toil, gracefully handling performance, reliability, and scale trade-offs.
  • Practice Defensive & Secure Engineering: Enforce defensive coding practices across edge conditions, limits, and complex authorization paths to reduce defect escape rates.
  • Simplify Workflows & Enhance User Experience: Partner with PM and Design to translate product requirements into intuitive code, using prototypes and telemetry to simplify complex user flows and reduce friction.
  • Ensure Production Service Excellence: Act as a champion for service health by driving root cause analysis (RCA) on production incidents, reducing MTTR, and implementing durable fixes.
  • Foster Team Capability & Knowledge Sharing: Run technical experiments, share modern design patterns, document tribal knowledge, and author "RAG-ready" technical notes to onboard and uplevel engineering peers.


#LI-KR1

Qualifications

  • Full-Stack Mastery: Deep hands-on experience building enterprise-grade applications using the MEAN stack (MongoDB, Express.js, Angular, Node.js).
  • Cloud Infrastructure Leadership: Proven track record architecting, deploying, and operating scalable solutions within the AWS ecosystem.
  • AI Tooling & Output Verification: Expertise in prompt and context engineering, utilizing AI tools within software development while exercising peer-review rigor to verify AI outputs for correctness and security.
  • Navigating Ambiguity: Demonstrated ability to remain highly productive through fluid requirements, adapting technical tactics while maintaining alignment with business goals.
  • System Design & Extensibility: Strong foundation in designing clean APIs, refactoring complex code bases, and making explicit architectural trade-offs for long-term scalability.
  • Production & Operational Ownership: Extensive experience debugging complex production services, driving RCAs, and implementing systemic prevention mechanisms.
  • Cross-Functional Influence: Skilled at aligning with PM, Design, and engineering partners, writing clear RFCs, and mentoring teams without needing formal authority.


Nice to Have

  • Identity & Access Security Domain: Direct experience with IAM, PAM, IGA, or Secrets Management platforms.
  • Modern Frontend & Quality Tooling: Fluency in TypeScript along with automated testing frameworks such as Jest, Playwright, or JMeter for load and stress testing.
  • DevOps & Observability Ecosystems: Practical experience with progressive delivery, CI/CD pipelines, feature flagging tools, and modern monitoring frameworks.
  • Context Engineering & Retrieval: Experience structuring codebase documentation and architecture for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) and reusable prompt templating.


Impact

As a Senior Staff Software Engineer, you will serve as a primary pillar of our technical strategy and engineering culture. By combining deep technical expertise with AI-first workflows, you will transform complex, ambiguous visions into secure, scalable, and highly performant platform capabilities. Your impact will be measured not only by the durability and reliability of the software you ship, but also by the accelerated velocity and heightened capability of the engineering teams with which you collaborate.

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/com-missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

$126,000.00 - $204,500.00/yr

About Palo Alto Networks

Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is an American multinational cybersecurity company with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. Its core products are a platform that includes advanced firewalls and cloud-based offerings that extend those firewalls to cover other aspects of security. The company serves over 70,000 organizations in over 150 countries, including 85 of the Fortune 100. It is home to the Unit 42 threat research team and hosts the Ignite cybersecurity conference.
Learn more about Palo Alto Networks
Size
11,870 employees
Market Cap
$42.6 billion
Industry
Net Income
-$368.2 million
Founded
2005
5 Year Trend
+25.7%
Revenue
$3.7 billion
NASDAQ

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