As a Staff Engineer, you’ll take ownership of these critical systems, designing and implementing how agents establish identity, receive dynamic access, securely interact with sensitive systems, and leave verifiable audit trails. You’ll shape the long-term architecture, anticipate technical risks, and evolve systems that span both machine- and human-facing workflows.
This is a rare opportunity to combine hands-on engineering with technical leadership—writing critical code, mentoring engineers, sharing knowledge, and driving best practices—while building a platform from the ground up at the cutting edge of AI, identity, and security.
Responsibilities
Own and guide the technical direction of core platform domains, including agent identity, authentication, authorization, and secrets management,
shaping architectures that span multiple services and teams while balancing scalability, reliability, and security.
Lead by example through high-impact implementation, mentoring engineers, and helping them navigate complex technical tradeoffs.
Proactively identify critical technical problems or gaps, and drive solutions from concept through delivery.
Establish and promote engineering best practices, ensuring high standards for code quality, security, and operational excellence.
Communicate complex technical concepts clearly to engineers, architects, product managers, and stakeholders, influencing decisions, fostering alignment, and driving cross-team collaboration.
Document key decisions, patterns, and practices to elevate team knowledge and ensure consistency across the platform.
Advocate for continuous improvement and operational efficiency, helping the team work smarter while maintaining a secure, high-quality platform.
Qualifications
You bring 8+ years of experience in backend and systems with a track record of owning large-scale or security-critical systems end-to-end.
You’ve designed and operated distributed, cloud-based architectures that are secure, scalable, and reliable, and you’re comfortable working with AWS, GCP, or Azure.
You have experience or a strong interest in identity, authentication, authorization, and secrets management, and you’re excited to apply these principles to AI and agent frameworks—this will give you an edge.
You thrive in ambiguity, make high-impact technical decisions, and guide others through complex tradeoffs with confidence.
You communicate clearly and effectively, influencing decisions, aligning teams, and mentoring engineers across multiple functions.
You’re passionate about sharing knowledge, raising the technical bar, and multiplying the impact of your peers and the team.
You are self-driven, proactive, and organized, with a strong focus on delivering high-quality, secure, and scalable solutions that make a real difference.
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? No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.
