Sr Principal/Principal Technical Product Engineer - Data Security (Cortex)

As a Principal/Sr Principal Technical Product Engineer within the Cortex organization, you will operate at the highest individual-contributor level, serving as a senior technical leader and strategic customer advocate bridging strategic customers, Product Management, Engineering, Sales, Customer Success, and Professional Services.

You are a force multiplier. You don’t just solve hard problems for our most technically complex customers-you define how they should be solved by identifying patterns across the customer base, mentoring others to raise the bar, and directly influencing Cortex product strategy, technical direction, and roadmap decisions. You operate beyond individual customer engagements, translating complex technical and business challenges into actionable direction that shapes the future of our cloud-native and security operations platforms.

As a Senior Principal, Technical Product Engineer (TPE) specializing in Data Security, you will serve as the primary technical authority for our Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and Data Detection & Response (DDR) capabilities. In this role, you will bridge product management, field engineering, and customers to showcase how Palo Alto Networks discovers, contextually analyzes, and protects sensitive data assets across complex multi-cloud and AI environments.

Your Impact

• Lead technical strategy, architecture validation, and solution design centered on DSPM capabilities across the Palo Alto Networks platform.
• Serve as the global Subject Matter Expert (SME) on Data Security, guiding internal sales, partners, and enterprise customers on shadow data discovery, data movement tracking, and data loss prevention.
• Build high-quality technical content, architectural blueprints, proof-of-concept environments, and step-by-step integration guides.
• Bridge the gap between Data Security and the modern SOC by developing playbooks for Data Detection and Response (DDR), SIEM/SOAR integrations, and automated incident response.
• Partner directly with Product Management to advocate for customer requirements, influence product roadmaps, and refine market positioning against competitors.
• Design security architectures that protect data feeding into modern AI/ML pipelines (e.g., AWS Bedrock, Azure OpenAI/Foundry, Google Vertex AI).

• Extensive experience leading cross-functional programs in fast-paced environments, managing multiple high-stakes projects and strategic enterprise customers simultaneously.
• Exceptional professional presence and confidence advising audiences ranging from practitioners to C-level executives.
• A collaborative leader who creatively and effectively solves the most complex issues and proactively establishes scalable solutions rather than solving isolated problems repeatedly.
• Deep affinity for technology and a relentless drive to master product, market, and competitive details, including emerging areas like AI Security and Agentic AI.
• Strong work ethic, integrity, and organizational discipline.
• Extensive experience working with strategic enterprise customers and major cloud infrastructure providers.
• Strong background in security orchestration, automation, and response (SOAR), XSIAM, XDR, or CNAPP technologies.
• Demonstrated mastery of securing modern cloud platforms and application architectures.
• 6+ years in technical product engineering, solution architecture, or technical product management with a concentration in cloud and data security.
• Deep domain expertise in Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), Data Detection & Response (DDR), Data Loss Prevention (DLP).
• Hands-on experience with native cloud data stores and warehouses (e.g., AWS S3/RDS, Azure Blob/SQL, Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks).
• Proven capability in building SOC workflows, SIEM integrations, and automated incident response triggers for data security events.
• Strong knowledge of securing data flows used in Generative AI tools and large language model (LLM) platforms.
• Excellent presentation and technical writing skills with a history of delivering demos, whitepapers, and guides to audiences ranging from analysts to CISOs.
• Experience with Application Security, CI/CD pipeline security, or multi-cloud automation (Terraform, CloudFormation) is a plus.

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.

$202,800.00 - $278,250.00/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.

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!