IT Principal AI Engineer

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 believe collaboration thrives in person. That’s why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it’s needed. This model supports real-time problem-solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Job Description

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 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

Lead the architecture and implementation of a Proxy-First "AI Gateway" intermediary layer to ensure seamless LLM vendor independence.

Design and build a unified API endpoint to abstract LLM complexities and provide centralized control for access and security.

Implement comprehensive GenAI observability pipelines to track trace-level data, prompt inputs / outputs, and model latency.

Create architecture to optimize performance and expense by intelligently routing simpler queries to cost-effective models.

Integrate observability data into the development cycle to identify real-time bottlenecks, high-latency chains, and model drift.

Institute and promote innovative thinking by incorporating Agentic AI, designing sophisticated Multi-Agent Systems and Agent-to-Agent (A2A) workflows.

Apply GenAI to complex Go-To-Market (GTM) business logic, automating critical workflows like customer support and entitlement platforms.

Pioneer "LLM as a Judge" testing methodologies to automate quality assurance of system outputs (correctness, tone, and helpfulness).

Build robust guardrails to filter inputs and outputs, preventing PII exposure, offensive content, and prompt injection attacks.

Develop detection mechanisms, including keyword filtering, behavioral analysis, and adversarial training, to protect model instructions from manipulation.

Qualifications

Your Experience

10+ years of overall IT system architecture, design, development, and deployment experience.

Proven track record leading technical teams in Agile / Scrum environments for large-scale implementations with aggressive timelines.

Experience partnering with business stakeholders to design workflows for Go-To-Market (GTM), sales, or support operations.

Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in Computer Science or a related field.

Strong verbal and written communication skills with the ability to explain complex AI concepts to senior leadership.

Extensive knowledge in building modern applications using Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Llama 3, GPT-4, and Anthropic.

Deep experience building and maintaining highly observable GenAI systems, including proficiency with tracing and evaluation tools (e.g., LangSmith, Arize, HoneyHive, or custom OpenTelemetry).

Deep experience with Multi-Agent systems, Agent-to-Agent (A2A) communication, and orchestration frameworks.

Experience establishing "Golden Datasets" for ground truth testing and performing comparative analysis across different models.

Expert-level proficiency in Python; familiarity with Java or Node.js for enterprise integration is a plus.

Additional Information

The Team

Working at a high-tech cybersecurity company within Information Technology is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You’ll join the brightest minds in technology, creating, building, and supporting tools and enabling our global teams on the front line of defense against cyberattacks. Join a dynamic and fast-paced team of people who feel excited by the prospect of a challenge and feel a thrill at resolving technical gaps that inhibit productivity

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 / commissioned roles) is expected to be between $167000 - $270500 / YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found  here .

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   [email protected] .

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.