Sr Principal Researcher

Company Description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.
Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

At Palo Alto Networks, we believe in the power of collaboration and value in-person interactions. This is why our employees generally work full time from our office with flexibility offered where needed. This setup fosters casual conversations, problem-solving, and trusted relationships. Our goal is to create an environment where we all win with precision.

Job Description

Your Career

We're seeking a talented and experienced Sr Principal Security Researcher to join as the cybersecurity lead for the Cortex Foundational Artificial Intelligence Research Team. Our team mission is to advance the state of the art of Cybersecurity AI by applying leading-edge AI techniques to the cybersecurity domain. We are building and improving foundational capabilities in cybersecurity systems using Large Language Models, Generative AI, Knowledge Graphs, Agentic AI, Model Fine-tuning/Distilling, and Retrieval Augmented Generation to be leveraged for future cybersecurity products. If you have a passion for Cybersecurity and Artificial Intelligence, join us to help our AI system become more capable at addressing cybersecurity specific problems. 

Your Impact

• Oversee overall quality and accuracy of the AI program from a security research perspective
• Define, design, and develop cybersecurity-specific tasks, benchmark, and evaluation methodologies to assess AI and Large Language Model (LLM) effectiveness in cybersecurity scenarios
• Identify and evaluate areas where leading edge AI and LLMs can enhance existing cybersecurity processes and tools
• Collaborate with AI researchers to improve AI and LLM performance on cybersecurity-related tasks
• Curate, annotate, and validate datasets for training and evaluating AI and LLMs on cybersecurity tasks
• Collaborate on synthetic data generation tasks to improve training and evaluation
• Oversee data collection for Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback and other AI techniques that require data labeling and expert rating
• Stay up-to-date with the latest developments in both cybersecurity and AI fields
• Communicate with security experts throughout the organization to share technical progress and system accuracy
• Prepare technical reports and presentations on research findings and model improvements
• Participate in relevant conferences and workshops to share knowledge and stay current with industry trends

Qualifications

Your Experience 

• Strong background in cybersecurity, with at least 7 years of experience in the field
• Practical exposure to a range of cybersecurity domains (e.g. at least one of reverse engineering, malware analysis, security operations, security architecture, secure coding practices, threat intelligence, offensive security, incident response, threat modeling, vulnerability assessment/management, etc.) such that you can evaluate if an AI system is producing correct or hallucinated results
• Understanding of common cybersecurity tools (e.g. at least one of Wireshark, Metasploit, Burp Suite, IDA Pro., etc.) and frameworks (e.g. at least one of MITRE ATT&CK, OWASP Top 10, Zero Trust Security Model, ISO/IEC 27001 etc.)
• Exposure to common technology such as Python programming language, Databases, Cloud Computing
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
• Excellent written and verbal communication and collaboration
• Thrives when working on open-ended problems without known solutions
• Well-rounded exposure to many topics in cybersecurity, and eager to quickly learn about areas where you have knowledge gaps
• Basic knowledge of machine learning concepts, particularly natural language processing and LLMs

The ideal candidate would have one or more of the following, but is not required

• Previous experience applying AI/ML techniques to cybersecurity problems
• Familiarity with prompt engineering and fine-tuning techniques for LLMs
• Experience with data labeling tools and platforms
• Knowledge of data privacy and security considerations in AI/ML
• Published blog posts, articles, books, research papers, etc. in a cybersecurity, IT, engineering, or scientific field
• A solid network of security professionals you can reach out to for ideas and external collaboration

Additional Information

The Team

You will work with a highly experienced, multidisciplinary, and diverse group of AI and Machine Learning experts, bringing your unique value as the cybersecurity domain expert. The ideal candidate enjoys collaboration, open ended problem solving, and rolling up your sleeves to find a pragmatic solution that pushes the team and our mission forward – we celebrate learning results quickly from iterative data-driven experiments. This role does not require prior AI expertise, but you will definitely learn about AI technology on the job, so please apply if you have expertise in cybersecurity research and would like to expand your scope to helping build AI systems that can learn from your experience!

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $182000 - $295000/YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

Our Commitment
We’re problem solvers that 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 [email protected].

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.