Job Summary
As a Sr Principal AI Engineer, you will join a dynamic team to pioneer our Generative AI transformation. You will act as a hands-on, technical leader, architecting the next generation of our business applications. This role moves beyond traditional software engineering to design intelligent, agentic workflows that will revolutionize our Go-To-Market (GTM) and customer experience processes.
Your Career
You will join a dynamic and fast-paced team of seasoned fellow engineers designing and developing multi-tiered applications in a rapidly growing company. As a Sr Principal AI Engineer, you will leverage your extensive experience to act as the trailblazer, helping us build and innovate enterprise-grade full-stack systems with a specific focus on Generative AI transformation.
We are looking for a highly hands-on, extremely technical leader to architect the next generation of our internal and external business applications. You will move beyond traditional software engineering to design intelligent, agentic workflows that revolutionize our Go-To-Market (GTM) processes.
Your Impact
AI Architecture & Strategy
Architect a Proxy-First AI Ecosystem: Lead the design and implementation of an "AI Gateway" intermediary layer to ensure vendor independence, allowing seamless switching between LLMs (e.g., GPT-4, Llama, Anthropic) without refactoring core application code.
Unified API Design: Build a single, unified API endpoint that abstracts the complexities of individual LLM providers, providing centralized control for access and security.
LLM Observability
Deep System Visibility: Implement comprehensive observability pipelines specifically for GenAI to track trace-level data, prompt inputs/outputs, and model latency.
Cost & Performance Optimization: Create architecture that optimize performance and expense by routing simpler queries to cost-effective models.
Feedback Loops: Integrate observability data into the development cycle to identify bottlenecks, high-latency chains, and model drift in real-time.
GenAI & Multi-Agent Development
Agentic AI Leadership: Institute and promote innovative thinking by incorporating agentic AI, designing sophisticated Multi-Agent Systems and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) workflows.
Business Workflow Automation: Apply GenAI to complex Go-To-Market (GTM) business logic, automating workflows such as customer support processes and entitlement platforms.
Evaluation Frameworks: Pioneer "LLM as a Judge" testing methodologies to automate quality assurance, using capable models to evaluate the correctness, tone, and helpfulness of system outputs.
Security & Governance (Guardrails)
AI Safety Implementation: Build robust guardrails to filter inputs and outputs, ensuring the prevention of PII exposure, offensive content, and prompt injection attacks.
Adversarial Defense: Develop detection mechanisms including keyword filtering, behavioral analysis, and adversarial training to protect model instructions from manipulation.
Qualifications
Required Qualifications
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience in Computer Science or a related field.
12+ years of IT system architecture, design, and development experience, or 8+ years with a Master's degree, or 5+ years with a PhD.
Proven track record of technical leadership in Agile/Scrum environments, delivering large-scale implementations with aggressive timelines.
Expert-level proficiency in Python.
Extensive, hands-on experience building applications using Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Llama 3, GPT-4, and Anthropic.
Deep experience with Multi-Agent systems, Agent-to-Agent (A2A) communication, and orchestration frameworks.
Preferred Qualifications
Experience partnering directly with business stakeholders to design workflows for Go-To-Market (GTM), sales, or support operations.
Familiarity with Java or Node.js for enterprise integration.
Proficiency with AI tracing and evaluation tools (e.g., LangSmith, Arize, HoneyHive, or custom OpenTelemetry implementations).
Experience establishing 'Golden Datasets' for ground truth testing and performing comparative analysis across different models.
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.
$223,000.00 - $306,500.00/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 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.
Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?: Yes
