Distinguished Engineer - Access Agent Platform
Palo Alto Networks3 days ago
Base Salary
$249k - $341k/yr
Responsibilities
- Define a unified, high-performance architecture for endpoint agents across Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.
- Architect shared networking, cryptography, configuration, telemetry, IPC, and core application layers for sibling products.
- Create secure plugin and extension models for authentication methods, protocol extensions, and tunnel types.
- Standardize endpoint quality, reliability, peer identity, least-privilege decomposition, error handling, memory safety, and CI/CD gates.
- Integrate AI-driven software design, development, crash triage, regression verification, and telemetry analysis into release pipelines.
- Set engineering standards, author Architectural Decision Records, mentor principal and senior engineers, and represent technical strategy to customers and engineering partners.
Requirements
- Seasoned and accomplished leadership experience in endpoint systems development, core networking, and/or OS-level software development.
- A track record of defining cross-team architecture adopted across multiple product groups.
- Expert hands-on knowledge of at least two target platforms, including relevant Windows, macOS, or Linux internals.
- Proven experience decomposing complex C/C++ codebases into modular, testable components through incremental and safe refactoring.
- Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with demonstrated ability to align senior engineers and executives around architectural changes.
- Preferred: hands-on experience with VPN, ZTNA, or SASE client technologies such as IPsec/IKEv2, TLS/DTLS, QUIC/MASQUE, split tunneling, or posture assessment.
- Preferred: experience shipping multi-platform agents at scale with staged rollouts and telemetry-backed observability.
- Preferred: experience integrating AI/ML models into software engineering workflows.
Benefits
- Most teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when needed.
- The role is eligible for immigration sponsorship.
- Benefits may include restricted stock units and a bonus in addition to base compensation.
- Reasonable accommodations are available for qualified individuals with disabilities or special needs.
About Palo Alto Networks
Palo Alto Networks builds cybersecurity products for enterprises and governments, including next-generation firewalls, cloud security (Prisma Cloud/Prisma Access), and SOC tools (Cortex). It sells subscriptions and appliances with cloud-delivered threat intelligence, securing networks, endpoints, and applications across data centers and public clouds. Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Santa Clara, California, the company is publicly traded on the NYSE under the ticker PANW.