Principal Site Reliability Engineer

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.

The Federal SRE team is seeking a seasoned Principal Site Reliability Engineer to serve as a Technical Lead and Catalyst for our federal cloud operations. In this role, you will design intelligent automation to manage production infrastructure at scale, ensure high uptime for our security SaaS products, and manage massive traffic across multi‑cloud environments. You will be the authority on enforcing security policies to protect sensitive data while maintaining system performance.

As a Principal Engineer, you will set technical direction, mentor engineers, collaborate closely with product and leadership teams, and deliver robust solutions that scale with the business.

• Design, build, and operate reliable, secure cloud infrastructure across multi‑cloud environments for our federal customers.
• Lead cross‑functional initiatives to ensure applications are production‑ready, scalable, secure, and resilient.
• Develop expertise in new technologies, embracing continuous learning and adoption of AI tools.
• Develop tools and automation frameworks, championing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and Monitoring as Code (MaC) principles.
• Automate robust deployments and orchestrate end‑to‑end monitoring and alerting solutions.
• Participate in on‑call rotations to support critical business and production systems.
• Lead root cause analysis of critical issues, driving improvements and preventing recurrence.
• Champion the success of SRE and Dev Ops initiatives, aligning technical decisions with business goals.

• Must be a US Citizen to be considered.
• 7+ years of experience in Infrastructure, SRE, or Dev Ops roles.
• BS or MS in Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent professional experience.
• 4+ years of experience with GCP, and expertise in their architecture, services and PKI concepts for cloud security. Experience with AWS is a plus.
• Expert troubleshooting skills to resolve cloud infrastructure and service issues, effectively identifying root cause and devising effective solutions.
• Proficiency in automation using Python and shell scripting;
  Golang is a plus.
• Expertise in Infrastructure as Code (IaC) with Terraform and Helm, leveraging AI tools for development.
• Solid experience with Kubernetes, container networking, and container workloads.
• Strong Linux administration skills.
• Proficiency with CI/CD pipelines, Git Ops principles, and tooling like Git Lab and Jenkins.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to collaborate effectively to drive outcomes.
• Self‑disciplined, self‑managed, and highly driven with a strong sense of ownership and urgency.
• Ability to adapt quickly to evolving cloud technologies, security threats, and advancements through continuous learning.
• Effectively address customer needs and provide clear Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to customers.
• A deep understanding of how technical decisions impact the business and an ability to align cloud operations with business goals.