Senior Staff Systems Engineer

Who you are

• 8+ years of experience in DevOps, Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), or Systems Engineering supporting complex, highly regulated cloud environments
• Google Cloud Platform Expertise: Deep hands-on experience provisioning, securing, and maintaining infrastructure on GCP, with practical working knowledge of GCP Assured Workloads, Cloud IAM, and VPC Service Controls
• Containerization & Orchestration: Proven expertise in architecting and operating Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) or Kubernetes clusters in mission-critical production environments
• Infrastructure as Code (IaC): Advanced proficiency in writing and maintaining modular, testable infrastructure automation using Terraform and configuration management tools (e.g., Ansible)
• CI/CD Pipeline Engineering: Strong background configuring, securing, and scaling enterprise CI/CD pipelines with integrated security testing
• Regulated Boundary Mastery: Demonstrated experience implementing and enforcing security controls aligned to FedRAMP Moderate/High (NIST SP 800-53) and/or DoD Cloud Computing SRG (IL4/IL5)
• Scripting & Systems Automation: Fluency in Python and Bash for operational scripting, systems integration, and tool development
• ITSM & Change Control: Solid experience working within formal IT Change Management frameworks and utilizing enterprise ticketing systems
• Clearance & Eligibility: U.S. Citizenship with the ability to pass background checks and security investigations required for DoD IL5 and federal boundary access
• Industry Certifications: Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud DevOps Engineer, Google Cloud Certified Professional Cloud Security Engineer, or Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
• Data & Analytics Platforms: Familiarity with BigQuery for telemetry log aggregation, querying, and audit reporting
• Zero-Trust Network Architecture: Practical experience with service mesh technologies (e.g., Anthos Service Mesh)
• Systems Languages: Experience with systems programming languages such as Golang and Rust

What the job involves

• As a Sr. Staff Systems Engineer (FedRAMP), you will be a senior technical leader in our Engineering & Infrastructure organization and the operational backbone of our automated cloud platforms across strictly governed public sector boundaries
• Staff Systems Engineer (FedRAMP), you will be a senior technical leader in our Engineering & Infrastructure organization and the operational backbone of our automated cloud platforms across strictly governed public sector boundaries
• You will have technical ownership over our automated infrastructure, deployment pipelines, and container platforms—challenged to design, harden, and scale systems across our FedRAMP environments
• This role provides a unique opportunity to work cross-functionally with Information Security, R&D, and FedRAMP Production Operations teams, placing you at the critical intersection of advanced DevOps systems engineering, cloud automation, and defense-grade compliance strategy
• Infrastructure as Code & Enclave Automation: Architect, deploy, and maintain modular Infrastructure as Code (IaC) using Terraform and Ansible across Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and GCP Assured Workloads, enforcing consistent baseline configurations across all FedRAMP boundaries
• Secure CI/CD Pipeline Architecture: Build, manage, and harden automated CI/CD pipelines to support zero-trust software delivery, integrating static analysis, automated container image scanning, vulnerability gates, and automated artifact provenance signing
• Container Orchestration & Workload Hardening: Manage, optimize, and scale production Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE) clusters, enforcing strict network isolation, zero-trust pod security standards (PSS/PSA), mutual TLS, and role-based access controls within defense enclaves
• Security & Compliance Control Automation: Act as a critical technical bridge to Information Security and FedRAMP compliance teams by automating technical controls for NIST SP 800-53 and DoD CC SRG IL5, generating programmatic Continuous Monitoring (ConMon) evidence, and driving rapid POA&M remediation
• Production Telemetry & Observability: Design and maintain unified monitoring, centralized audit logging, and proactive alerting frameworks across all boundary enclaves utilizing Google Cloud Operations Suite (Cloud Logging, Cloud Monitoring) and BigQuery to maintain audit readiness and operational health
• Privileged Boundary Access & Identity Governance: Implement and uphold zero-trust identity architectures within FedRAMP boundaries, leveraging GCP Cloud IAM, Identity-Aware Proxy (IAP), VPC Service Controls, and hardware-backed multi-factor authentication (CAC/PIV tokens)
• Change Governance & Release Resilience: Apply formal change management procedures to deployment workflows, execute blue/green and canary deployment patterns to minimize operational risk, and lead technical incident response to rapidly diagnose and resolve production service disruptions
• Internal Enabling & Operational Mentorship: Provide self-service automation tooling and compliant enclave access for internal support and development teams, mentoring junior engineers in cloud security, GitOps practices, and systems automation
• On-Call Operations & Incident Response: Participate in an on-call rotation to support critical FedRAMP cloud infrastructure, responding to high-priority operational incidents, system alerts, and security escalations to maintain SLA availability across regulated environments

Benefits

• Healthcare: We value your health and provide options so you can choose what best supports your lifestyle and personal health goals. Various nationwide plans — including Blue Shield of California, Kaiser Permanente, Delta Dental, VSP, and more — are available to you and your family. Our providers offer the flexibility you want and the coverage you need
• Wellness: With a large on-site gym and daily, instructor-led exercise classes at HQ in Santa Clara, Palo Alto Networks actively supports employee fitness. Our juice bar, Gym & Juice, features fresh juice blends, a quick and nutritious option pre- or post-workout. And our ongoing wellness speaker series highlights the latest trends in health and wellness
• Development: Professional development is serious business at Palo Alto Networks, where the Talent Development team offers 25+ courses to help employees boost their careers and develop leadership capability
• Financial: Most roles are eligible for equity grants, and we now offer new hires a quarterly vesting schedule right away. We want you to be fairly compensated and rewarded as soon as you make an impact – on our team, that happens immediately! And because we consider every employee a stakeholder in our long-term success, we offer an Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with a 24-month lookback. From life insurance to health savings accounts, we provide ways to help you protect and grow your wealth. Palo Alto Networks offers both traditional and Roth 401(k) options, along with a company match of 50% to a max annual amount of $1,000
• Time Off: In addition to paid corporate holidays, Flexible Time Off programs empower our employees to balance their work schedules with personal time off. We offer 12 weeks of full pay for medical leave and 6 weeks of full pay for parental leave. As a company with strong ties to the military and veterans, we also offer 26 weeks of full pay for military leave
• Perks: Our corporate discount program provides employees with significant discounts on merchandise, travel and entertainment. We offer many on-site perks at headquarters, including cafeterias, fuel service, dry cleaning service, EV charging stations, and a company store. We also provide complimentary drinks, fresh fruit, and snacks in break rooms across our campus to help everyone power through the day.

Life at Palo Alto Network