Staff 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.

Who We Are

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.

Job Summary

Palo Alto Networks is looking for a cloud infrastructure and observability professional to help build and operate reliable, scalable, and secure technology platforms. You will combine expertise in cloud operations, automation, and observability to improve infrastructure performance and reliability, while exploring opportunities to apply AI and machine learning to IT operations.

Your Career

Join a team of senior engineers operating in a large-scale, multi-cloud production environment supporting tens of thousands of enterprise customers worldwide. This is not a typical SRE role — you'll work at the intersection of Site Reliability Engineering and AI-driven automation, pioneering the next generation of intelligent infrastructure operations.

As a Staff AI-SRE, you will be managing cloud infrastructure comprising Kubernetes (GKE) and API Gateway (Kong), while leading the adoption of AIOps, Large Language Models (LLMs), and AI-assisted workflows to transform how we build, monitor, and operate systems. You'll work alongside experienced DevOps professionals in a fast-paced, cybersecurity-focused organization committed to AI-first operations.

• Own and operate large-scale, global production environments with an AI focus — leveraging AIOps and machine learning to drive autonomous operations

• Pioneer AI-driven automation: Implement LLM-powered runbooks, AI-assisted incident diagnostics, and intelligent alerting systems that predict issues before they impact customers

• Design self-healing infrastructure: Build systems that leverage AI for automated incident remediation, anomaly detection, and proactive service monitoring

• Lead architecture, deployment, and operations of Kong API Gateway infrastructure — including rate limiting, authentication, traffic management, and plugin customization

• Design, deploy, and manage production-grade GKE clusters — cluster upgrades, node pool management, workload optimization, and multi-tenancy

• Implement predictive scalability: Use AI modeling to forecast resource needs, prevent bottlenecks, and optimize capacity planning across GKE and cloud infrastructure

• Actively monitor, investigate, and resolve P1/P2 incidents using AI-assisted diagnostics and automated playbooks

• Drive end-to-end troubleshooting across complex, distributed systems — augmented by AI tools for faster root cause analysis

• Implement and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Helm — integrating with AI APIs for intent-based infrastructure management

• Champion "vibe coding" workflows: Leverage AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Claude) to accelerate development — focusing on high-level architecture and intent while AI handles boilerplate

• Develop and maintain automation and tooling (Python, Bash, Go) with AI-augmented development practices

• Create AI-powered operational runbooks using Generative AI for faster documentation, knowledge sharing, and incident response

• Contribute to a culture of AI-first operational excellence in a high-scale, high-availability environment

• On-call responsibilities: Daytime hours with occasional weekends and holidays (rotation-based)

Qualifications

Your Experience

• 6–10 years of experience in SRE/DevOps roles in production environments at scale

• Linux Expert: Deep hands-on experience managing and supporting Linux (RHEL/Ubuntu) at scale, including kernel tuning and system internals

• AI/ML Integration Experience: Hands-on experience or strong interest in AIOps platforms and tools

• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernete

• Strong hands-on experience with API Gateway (Kong)

• Strong hands-on experience with GCP (required); AWS or Azure experience is a plus

• Mastery of Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and management

• Familiarity with CI/CD and GitOps tools (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Flux)

• Proficiency in Python for scripting, automation, and AI/ML integrations

• Proven track record leading P1/P2 incident bridges and post-mortems for complex, global application stacks

• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills with a passion for incident handling

• Fluent in security, vulnerability management, and CIS compliance

• Highly responsive, proactive, and ownership-driven

• The AI-First Mindset: You possess the "vibe coding" spirit — leveraging AI to solve complex problems faster without losing the critical eye of a senior engineer. You're excited about transforming traditional SRE practices with intelligent automation.

Nice to Have

• Experience with Service Mesh (Istio, Kong Mesh)

• Certifications: CKA, CKAD, Google Cloud Professional

• Experience building or integrating with AIOps platforms

Why This Role is Different

This isn't just about keeping systems running — it's about reinventing how SRE is done. You'll be at the forefront of:

• AI-Assisted Incident Response: Using LLMs to accelerate diagnostics and automate remediation

• Predictive Operations: Moving from reactive firefighting to proactive, AI-driven prevention

• Intelligent Automation: Building systems that learn, adapt, and self-heal

• Next-Gen Tooling: Shaping how AI transforms infrastructure engineering

Our Commitment

We’re trailblazers that dream big, take risks, and challenge cybersecurity’s status quo. It’s simple: we can’t accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at  accommodations@paloaltonetworks.com.

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship? No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.