Sr Software Engineer; Gen Firewall - Dataplane

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.

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.

To stay ahead of the curve, it’s critical to know where the curve is, and how to anticipate the changes we’re facing. For the fastest growing cybersecurity company, the curve is the evolution of cyberattacks, and the products and services that proactively address them.

Our engineering team is at the core of our products – connected directly to the mission of preventing cyberattacks. They are constantly innovating – challenging the way we, and the industry, think about cybersecurity. These engineers aren’t shy about building products to solve problems no one has pursued before. They define the industry, instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment.

We are looking for motivated, smart, hardworking and passionate individuals to join the Next‑gen Firewall dataplane team as a Software Engineer. You will be part of a world‑class software engineering team that works on various cutting‑edge technologies for the firewall. As a member of a data plane networking software group, you will be responsible for designing and developing the next‑generation firewall.

You will take ownership for large software components, work with product management on real life customer requirements, apply your knowledge to functional design, utilize your programming skills for efficient and robust implementation, and interact with quality assurance and field support teams in the whole software development cycle. The culture at Palo Alto Networks is creative, dynamic and inspiring to tackle real work Cyber‑attacks.

• Responsible for development of the critical dataplane components for the State‑of‑the‑art Next Generation Firewalls deployed at Enterprise, Data Center, Cloud, and Service Provider environments.
• Lead L2‑L4 network security feature development.
• Lead next generation security product development.
• Support critical customer escalations and provide root cause analysis in a timely manner.
• Work with multi‑functional team members on user requirements, including but not limited to Product Management, QA, Support, etc.
• Effective decision maker, take ownership and independently drive, lead tasks and assignments.

• Expert in common network protocols such as TCP/IP, IPv4, IPv6, multicast.
• Expert in dataplane technologies like DPDK based packet processing.
• Expert in typical network device features like NAT, ALG, DoS Protection.
• Expert in computer architecture, cybersecurity, distributed systems.
• In‑depth understanding of common software vulnerabilities and mitigations.
• In‑depth understanding of linux systems.
• Expert C, Python, Shell script programming skills.
• Tech lead experience in networking domains.
• Strong communication skills to work effectively with multi‑functional groups.
• BS/MS degree in…