Principal Linux Threat & Detection Engineer (Cortex)

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.

Our Approach to Work

We lead with flexibility and choice in all of our people programs. We have disrupted the traditional view that all employees have the same needs and wants. We offer personalization and offer our employees the opportunity to choose what works best for them as often as possible - from your well-being support to your growth and development, and beyond!

Job Description

Your Career

We are looking for a highly technical individual to join the Threat and Detection team. This team focuses on Palo Alto Networks (PANW) Cortex Security & Security Assurance features on multiple operating systems, including Linux and cloud workloads.

The role involves integrating and developing proof of concepts (POCs) for known and emerging threats and offensive tools into our software. These POCs will be based on research conducted by teammates or colleagues. After a teammate completes their research, the candidate will be responsible for writing a POC or working code that integrates this research onto Cortex XDR.

Your Impact

• Learn new security features, technologies, and platforms quickly
• Gain hands-on experience with scalable, real-time detection/prevention systems
• Analyze and identify real-world vulnerabilities, malware, and exploits
• Code / Create POCs for variety of Linux / Nix features 
• Leverage data-driven approaches to identify threats and mitigations
• Reproduce and analyze security issues and bugs
• Enrich our security automation coverage and infrastructure / tooling 
• Collaborate with research and low-level engineering groups to identify security issues and gaps
• Scale existing tooling and infrastructure for both on-prem and cloud workloads

Qualifications

Your Experience

• 6+ years of C/C++ programming skills
• Deep understanding of operating system infrastructure
• 5+ years of information security experience, including coverage testing (red/blue/purple teaming)
• Proficient in file formats like ELF, Mach-O, Zip, Packers, etc.
• Experience in Linux user-mode development
• Comfortable with multi-distro software development
• Strong knowledge of fundamental computer science concepts (computer architecture, operating systems, compilers, file systems, algorithms, data structures)
• Working knowledge of Git and Jira
• Always ready to learn and step outside of your comfort zone
• Comfortable working collaboratively and remotely with others to achieve complex team goals
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Proven track record of delivering features in large-scale applications or core systems

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience with software security and Linux security models (e.g., SELinux, Secure Boot, AppArmor).
• Experience with containers, docker, k8s
• Experience with Linux namespaces/cgroups/other isolation techniques
• Deep understanding of operating system attack surfaces
• Knowledge of Python and Bash scripting
• Experience with disassemblers, debuggers, and other reverse engineering tools
• Familiarity with multiple Linux distributions and networking stack
• Strong debugging skills on various Linux platforms
• Experience with Rust/GO or other low-level programming languages
• Experience with various cybersecurity technologies and standards (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK framework)

Additional Information

The Team 

The infrastructure team is a part of the Cortex Platform group. it is a highly technical and multidisciplinary team. The team is detached from the product roadmap, as we are fully dedicated to backend infra - developing shared components, tackling high-scale infrastructure issues, monitoring tools, setting the bar for technical acumen, and making our group developer experience better. You will get the chance to work closely with DevOps teams, Pipeline teams, dev teams (in and out of the group), and automation teams all in which to make the Platform Group (and others) work better.

Our Commitment

We’re trailblazers that dream big, 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.

#LI-ER1

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?: No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.