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Agent guide: [/agents.md](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/agents.md). --- # Sr Principal Software Engineer/Architect (SRE/Platforms) - **Company:** Palo Alto Networks - **Location:** Santa Clara, CA, United States - **Experience:** Expert - **Contract:** Permanent contract - **Skills:** Artificial Intelligence, Amazon Web Services, Systems Engineering, Cloud Computing, Cloud Engineering, Software Debugging, Programming Tools, Distributed Systems, Python (Programming Language), Reliability Engineering, Google Cloud, Delivery Pipeline, Large Language Models, Generative AI, Backend, Kubernetes, Palo Alto Networks - **Published:** August 19, 2026 - **Apply:** https://dejobs.org/x/x/E7BEBD2A1B424971A7848CDC8568677C/job/ ## About the Role * Proven Technical Leadership: Exceptional ability to own large-scale platform projects from inception to production delivery, driving complex initiatives either independently or by rally-point leadership of cross-functional engineering teams. * Expertise in Distributed Systems: Deep, battle-tested experience designing, debugging, and scaling highly complex distributed systems and cloud infrastructure (e.g., Kubernetes, AWS, GCP, or similar cloud-native tech stacks). * AI Ecosystem Competency: Highly proficient with the modern AI tooling ecosystem. Practical experience applying AI, LLM integrations, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or agentic frameworks to solve real-world system engineering problems, automate observability, or streamline developer tooling. * Relentless Problem-Solving & Empathy: A strong passion for identifying friction points, coupled with a deep empathy for internal software developers as your primary customers. The driving curiosity to constantly dissect and learn intricate, multi-layered domain areas. * Feedback-Driven & Collaborative Mindset: A highly flexible, collaborative working style with a strong habit of actively seeking out feedback to refine technical designs, combined with the openness to communicate transparently and ask for help when navigating deeply complex architectural blocks. * Language & Tooling Agility: Fluency in modern backend or infrastructure languages (such as Go, Python, or similar). Specific syntax matters less than a track record of spending significant time executing large-scale projects where these technologies are deployed. ## Description We are looking for a visionary Senior Principal Engineer/Architect to serve as the technical authority for our global SRE and Platform Engineering initiatives across the US and India. This isn't just a "keep the lights on" role; you will be the primary architect and key technical driver of our AI-driven Autonomous SRE transformation at Palo Alto Networks. Acting as a strategic bridge between infrastructure products and operational excellence, you will partner directly with product architectures and engineering teams to translate complex requirements into automated, intelligent self-service platform capabilities, ensuring our global systems are not just reliable, but fully self-healing., * Identify and Architect End-to-End Solutions: Actively audit and identify current systemic bottlenecks across all infrastructure processes, release pipelines, and core services offered by the Platform/SRE organization. Design and deliver complex architectural frameworks that eliminate operational friction and address team-wide pain points. * Drive AI-Powered Innovation: Spearhead the integration of advanced AI tooling, LLMs, and agentic workflows into the SRE ecosystem. Build intelligent platform features that proactively optimize infrastructure costs, reduce cognitive load during high-pressure situations, and automate the triage of complex system anomalies. * Lead Scale and Reliability Engineering: Take full ownership of projects from inception to delivery-acting as the ultimate technical authority-to ensure our distributed systems, binary/config deployment frameworks, and observability pipelines scale seamlessly across cloud-native environments. * Collaborate Cross-Functional & Think Beyond Implementation: Work closely with cross-functional leaders, engineering teams, and internal stakeholders to turn unstructured system metrics and process inefficiencies into highly automated, intuitive platform workflows. Challenge legacy assumptions to elevate the overall developer experience. * Share Infrastructure & Tooling Accountability: Partner with platform engineers across the organization to design, maintain, and revolutionize automated validation frameworks, immutable artifact deployment structures, and resilient self-healing infrastructure. * Technical Leadership & Mentorship: Foster a culture of accelerated learning, continuous growth, and high engineering standards. Mentor senior technical colleagues across the company in building reliable, highly performant, and intelligent platform systems through direct mentorship and design review leadership. ## Related Videos - [Platform Engineering vs. DevOps Why not both?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/885-platform-engineering-vs-devops-why-not-both) - [Developing the Backend with Stefan Lingler, CTO at Shpock](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100360-developing-the-backend-with-stefan-lingler-cto-at-shpock) - [Understanding Kubernetes in a visual way](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100085-understanding-kubernetes-in-a-visual-way) - [The Cloud is Calling: Answer with In-Demand Skills](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/945-the-cloud-is-calling-answer-with-in-demand-skills) - [Inside Bitpanda's Tech Stack: Scaling a European Fintech Leader - Markus Dorner](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1979-inside-bitpanda-s-tech-stack-scaling-a-european-fintech-leader-markus-dorner) - [Nest.js - TypeScript in the backend can also be clean](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/1033-nest-js-typescript-in-the-backend-can-also-be-clean) ## Related Articles - [Highest Paying Tech Companies for Developers](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/220-highest-paying-tech-companies-for-developers) - [Navigating the AI Shift](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/629-navigating-the-ai-shift) - [Stephan Gillich - Bringing AI Everywhere](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/489-stephan-gillich-bringing-ai-everywhere) - [Is Software Engineering Over-Saturated?](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/magazine/418-is-software-engineering-over-saturated) - [Events like RSAC Get You CISOs. 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