Director, Software Engineering (Cortex Platform)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us! 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.

Job Summary

We are seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead the development of Cortex Platform teams in Santa Clara, CA.

Hands-on experience with cloud distributed systems and high-scale designs. Deeper experience with microservices, data stores and production troubleshooting.

Key Responsibilities

• Define the engineering vision and long-term technical roadmap for the Cortex Platform US teams, ensuring alignment with global business objectives.
• Cultivate engineering rigor with an uncompromising focus on high-scale architecture, multi-tenant cloud reliability, and end-to-end operational observability.
• Champion AI-powered development by integrating modern AI tools and LLM utilities into the engineering workflow to significantly accelerate software delivery cycles.
• Adopt a customer-first mindset, actively collaborating with Product Management, Customer Experience, and Sales Operations to translate real-world customer pain points into robust, scalable platform capabilities.
• Lead and scale a high-performing software engineering organization delivering enterprise-grade, mission-critical platform services that exceed customer SLAs.
• Drive agile execution, establishing clear metrics for team velocity, code quality, and system uptime, ensuring the customer experience is never compromised.
• Instill a culture of extreme ownership across all engineering squads, fostering an environment where leaders take end-to-end accountability for their systems, from initial design to production reliability.
• Attract, coach, and elevate technical leadership (Principals/Architects) and senior engineering talent within worldwide engineering squads.
• Foster an inclusive, innovative, and high-accountability culture that thrives in a fast-paced environment.

Qualifications Required

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
• 15+ years of software engineering experience, with at least 7 years leading large, globally distributed engineering organizations.
• Proven track record of architecting and operating large-scale cloud SaaS platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure) handling massive data throughput.
• Strong expertise in designing and managing distributed, high-throughput database architectures capable of supporting real-time data ingestion and heavy read/write workloads at enterprise scale.
• A demonstrated history of practicing extreme ownership—taking total accountability for team outcomes, navigating ambiguity, and proactively driving solutions.
• High energy, a customer-first orientation, and the ability to pivot seamlessly in a fast-paced environment with a resilient, “can-do” attitude.

Preferred Qualifications

• Prior experience in Cybersecurity, Big Data analytics, or SIEM/SOAR/XDR platforms is highly desirable.
• Deep familiarity with modern NoSQL, Time-Series, and Distributed Databases/Data Warehouses (e.g., Elasticsearch/OpenSearch, ClickHouse, Cassandra, BigQuery, Snowflake, Redis).
• Experience deploying or managing teams that build/utilize machine learning pipelines or generative AI tools.
• Deep familiarity with modern backend languages (Go, Python), containerization (Kubernetes, Docker), and stream processing (Kafka, Pub/Sub).

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.

$232,000.00 - $320,750.00/yr

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 View email address on click.appcast.io.

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.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?: Yes