Principal Software Engineer - Agentic AI (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.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

Job Description

Your Career

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Software Engineer to join the Architecture team within Cortex XSOAR. You will play a pivotal role in building scalable agentic AI infrastructure, driving the next evolution of cybersecurity automation. This role is based predominantly in our Tel Aviv office and is ideal for innovators who thrive on disruption, collaboration, rapid self-learning, and leadership.

In this role, you will design and implement high-performance, distributed backend services, integrating advanced AI capabilities to enhance proactive threat detection and mitigation. You’ll work closely with AI experts, security researchers, and software engineers to develop cutting-edge autonomous security agents.

While prior production experience with AI is not mandatory, a background in LLMs, AI-driven automation, or intelligent agents is highly advantageous. Cloud-native development experience is required.

More information about XSOAR, here.

Your Impact

• Architect and develop scalable backend services that power agentic AI capabilities within Cortex XSOAR.
• Integrate AI-driven automation into security workflows, leveraging LLMs and autonomous agents.
• Design and optimize cloud-native systems for high performance, resilience, and security.
• Collaborate across multidisciplinary teams to drive AI adoption within our product suite.
• Lead architectural decisions and conduct rigorous code/design reviews to uphold technical excellence.
• Continuously optimize system performance, scalability, and fault tolerance in high-stakes environments.
• Mentor engineers, fostering technical excellence across the team.

Qualifications

Your Experience 

• 8+ years of software engineering experience, including building scalable backend systems.
• Expertise in Go or Python for high-performance backend development.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, microservices, and cloud architectures (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
• Hands-on experience with Kubernetes and modern DevOps tooling.
• Proven ability to lead cross-functional technical initiatives and mentor engineers

Advantage:

• Experience integrating AI/LLM-based solutions into backend systems.
• Familiarity with RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), vector databases, and AI-driven automation

Additional Information

The Team

The Cortex XSOAR Architecture Team thrives on technical excellence, rapid innovation, and deep collaboration. We are pioneering AI-powered cybersecurity automation, tackling some of the industry's toughest challenges. If you’re a relentless problem solver, a strategic thinker, and a hands-on builder, we want to hear from you.

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.