Principal Site Reliability Engineer (CDSS Advanced URL Filtering)

Palo Alto Networks - Santa Clara, CA

Full-time - Principal

Onsite - Santa Clara, CA

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services

About the position

The Principal Site Reliability Engineer at Palo Alto Networks will play a crucial role in enhancing the reliability and scalability of the company's systems, particularly within the CDSS Advanced URL Filtering team. This position involves optimizing infrastructure costs, defining service-level objectives, and collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure high availability of applications. The role requires a strong focus on automation, monitoring, and continuous improvement to support the company's mission of protecting the digital way of life.

Responsibilities

• Optimize infrastructure costs by monitoring resource utilization, rightsizing instances, and reducing waste to improve cost-efficiency.
• Define and manage service-level objectives (SLOs) and related metrics to ensure service reliability and align with business goals.
• Design and maintain secure cloud infrastructure that prioritizes reliability, scalability, and efficiency.
• Develop expertise in new technologies to enhance infrastructure and operations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure applications are production-ready and highly available.
• Automate deployments, monitoring, and alerting to streamline operations and improve reliability.
• Diagnose and resolve critical issues, driving optimization and continuous improvement.
• Participate in on-call rotations to support seamless service operations.
• Contribute to design reviews to enhance system performance and scalability.

Requirements

• Expertise in provisioning and managing cloud infrastructure on public or private cloud platforms (GCP, AWS, or Azure preferred).
• Strong proficiency in tools like Kubernetes, Terraform, and Ansible.
• Proficiency in managing and optimizing SQL and NoSQL databases, including operational tasks such as provisioning, scaling, monitoring, backups, and troubleshooting.
• Deep understanding of distributed systems, high-availability architecture, and strategies for scaling and optimizing system performance.
• Proven experience defining and managing SLAs, SLOs, and SLIs to ensure service reliability and business alignment.
• Expertise in monitoring and optimizing cloud infrastructure costs, including resource allocation and implementing efficient practices.
• Hands-on experience with Envoy or similar load balancing technologies, along with strong Linux system administration and advanced network troubleshooting skills.
• Advanced skills in programming and automation using Python, Golang, or shell scripting.
• Proven experience managing production deployments, ensuring system stability, and enforcing DevOps best practices.
• Familiarity with CI/CD pipelines (GitLab CI preferred) and expertise in designing robust monitoring and alerting systems.
• Exceptional ability to work with cross-functional teams, communicate effectively, and provide technical leadership.
• BS/MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or a related field, with 8+ years of hands-on industry experience in Site Reliability Engineering or a similar role.

Nice-to-haves

• Experience with platforms like BigQuery, MongoDB, Cloud SQL, Firestore, Bigtable, and MySQL.
• Strong communication skills and a drive to make a meaningful impact.

Benefits

• FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items.
• Mental and financial health resources.
• Personalized learning opportunities.