Director of Software Engineering – Cortex Cloud

About the role

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Director of Software Engineering to lead the Cortex Cloud team responsible for Kubernetes Security Posture Management (KSPM) and Cloud Network Security (CNS). You will oversee a group of roughly 25 engineers, delivering high‑impact, large‑scale cloud solutions for some of the nation’s biggest enterprises.

Key responsibilities

• Build, mentor, and lead high‑performing backend engineering teams, fostering a culture of empowerment and technical excellence.
• Partner with Product Management, Infrastructure, Research, and UX to define multi‑quarter roadmaps and align priorities across stakeholders.
• Own the end‑to‑end software development lifecycle, translating product strategy into executable plans and ensuring on‑time, high‑quality delivery.
• Provide architectural leadership for petabyte‑scale, distributed cloud systems, designing high‑throughput, cloud‑native microservices.
• Drive production readiness by enforcing best practices in deployment, observability, reliability, and runtime stability.
• Communicate technical strategy, trade‑offs, risks, and execution plans to senior leadership and cross‑functional teams.

Required profile

• Proven experience leading large backend engineering groups in complex, cross‑functional domains.
• Strong strategic vision combined with deep hands‑on expertise in large‑scale distributed cloud architectures.
• Excellent communication skills to align stakeholders and drive consensus.

Required skills

• Kubernetes
• Cloud‑native microservices
• Distributed systems design
• Petabyte‑scale data processing
• Observability and monitoring
• Reliability engineering
• Large‑scale cloud architecture