Principal Security Researcher; Decoder

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.

You will be part of the team that develops the Intrusion Prevention System to power Palo Alto Networks’s next generation firewall. The Decoder team is responsible for decoding network protocols and inspecting application traffic on enterprise customers’ networks, providing common service to support a variety of network security services.

As a member of the Decoder team, you have the opportunity to work on our security engine, and collaborate with different intelligent teams on various advanced cybersecurity products.

• Research networking protocols and related application networking behavior.
• Research file types and file properties.
• Research and provide defense mechanisms against popular protocol/firewall evasions.
• Develop protocol and file decoders, and integrate the detection solutions with Palo Alto Networks products.
• Build common services to support various network security services.
• Develop internal tools to monitor and support the cyber security products.
• Cross‑team collaboration, discover and integrate advanced cybersecurity features to inline product solutions.

• Strong programming and debugging skills; experience coding in Go required and C/C++ experience preferred.
• Strong understanding of Go concurrency, memory optimization, and scalable system design.
• Excellent understanding of L4–7 networking protocols such as HTTP, TLS, SMTP, FTP, Websocket, GRPC, TCP/IP, etc.
• Experience with packet processing, stream reassembly, protocol parsing, and traffic analysis systems.
• Experience in analyzing network traffic using tools like Wireshark, Fiddler, tcpdump, etc.
• Familiar with Linux/Unix development environment.
• Team player, and good communication skills to work with cross‑functional groups.
• BS/MS in Computer Science or Electrical Engineering or equivalent Military experience.
• 5+ years industry experience.

• Knowledge and experience of next‑generation firewall and cyber security services.
• Understanding of protocol evasion techniques, fragmentation, and traffic obfuscation.
• Experience with Suricata, Zeek, eBPF, DPDK, or similar technologies.
• Experience with pattern matching engines, rule‑based detection systems, or DFA/NFA concepts.
• Familiarity with performance profiling tools such as pprof, perf, or valgrind.
• Experience applying AI techniques to traffic classification, protocol identification, or anomaly detection is a big 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.

$ - $/yr

We’re trailblazers that dream big, take…