Director SW Engineering (ML Engineering and Platform)

Our Mission

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!

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 Summary

Your Career
The Prisma AIRS team is building the future of AI security. With organizations building complex ecosystems of AI models, applications, and agents, a dynamic new attack surface is emerging. Prisma AIRS delivers a comprehensive platform for AI security, encompassing model security, posture management, AI red teaming, and runtime protection.

As the Director of Engineering responsible for ML engineering and platform, you will be a key leader in the organization, setting the technical vision and strategy for a significant area of development within Prisma AIRS. You will be responsible for driving the development of this industry-defining platform, scaling our engineering teams, and collaborating with senior leadership to ensure our technology strategy aligns with the broader business objectives.

Your Impact
Strategic Leadership: Define and execute the technical strategy and roadmap for your area of ownership within the Prisma AIRS engineering organization, managing multiple teams and engineering managers.

Organizational Scaling: Build and lead a high-performing engineering organization. Excel at recruiting, mentoring, and retaining top-tier engineering talent and managers.

Technical Vision: Drive the architectural direction for a complex, highly scalable, cloud-native AI security platform within your domain. Make critical high-judgment decisions on technology, architecture, and long-term design.

Cross-Functional Execution: Partner seamlessly with senior leaders across Product Management, AI Research, UX, and other engineering leaders to deliver on a cohesive product roadmap.

Executive Communication: Clearly articulate technical vision, strategy, project status, and risks to senior stakeholders and executive leadership.

Culture of Innovation: Foster a results-oriented culture of innovation, execution, collaboration, and engineering excellence, empowering teams to solve challenging problems.

Qualifications

Your Experience
Education: BS/MS in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.

Required Qualifications:

12+ years of professional software development experience, with a proven track record of building and shipping high-quality, large-scale, enterprise-grade cloud delivered services. Extensive professional experience with a deep focus on MLOps, ML systems, or productionizing machine learning models at scale. 

MLOps pipelines

Model governance/lifecycle

AI observability stack, Big Data infra
(Kafka/Spark)

GenAI/LLM platform

IaC/GitOps

AI safety/governance
 

Leadership:

6+ years of formal engineering management experience, with experience leading multiple teams (managing managers is a plus).

Technical Acumen:

Exceptional technical judgment with deep, hands-on experience in designing, building, and operating highly scalable cloud-native services with recent experience delivery AI/ML capabilities or building AI/ML platforms in production.

Strategic Mindset:

Demonstrated ability to translate complex business needs into a clear, actionable technical strategy and roadmap.

Communication:

Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with a strong executive presence and the ability to champion ideas and initiatives across the organization.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Proven track record of managing geographically distributed teams.

• Experience presenting at industry conferences or engaging with executive-level customers.

• Deep experience in the cybersecurity domain (e.g., threat detection, network security, cloud security, application security).

• Direct experience with AI/ML platforms, MLOps, or building security solutions for AI systems.

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/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.

$232,000.00 - $320,750.00/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.

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?: Yes