Sr Staff Machine Learning Engineer

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

As a Sr Staff Data Scientist, you will sit at the intersection of Data Engineering and Applied AI, building the technical foundations that power our business operations. This is a high-impact, hybrid role for a builder who refuses to be boxed in-you are just as comfortable writing complex SQL transformations as you are fine-tuning LLMs or building predictive models.

You won't just analyze data; you will build the pipelines that move it and the models that learn from it. Working within the AI & Data Analytics team, you will solve ambiguous problems in Marketing, Product, and Post-Sales, helping us shape the future of cybersecurity.

This is an in-office role 3 days/week in our HQ, Santa Clara, CA.

Your Impact

In this versatile role, you will execute across the full data stack:

Data Engineering & Infrastructure

• Build & Maintain Pipelines: Design and implement efficient data pipelines (batch and real-time) to support analytics and modeling. You will ensure our data is clean, accessible, and reliable.
• Cloud Native Development: Leverage Google Cloud Platform (BigQuery, Vertex AI) to create scalable datasets. You will manage the trade-offs between cost, latency, and data quality.
• Security & Process: Implement best practices for data security and code quality. You will participate in code reviews and contribute to our CI/CD processes to ensure production-grade deployments.

AI/ML & Business Intelligence

• End-to-End Modeling: Own the full lifecycle of machine learning projects-from problem definition and feature engineering to model training and deployment. Key use cases include Marketing Attribution, Customer Churn, and Propensity to Buy.
• Generative AI & Agents: Experiment with and implement Generative AI solutions. You will help build and evaluate AI agents (using tools like LangChain or LlamaIndex) to enable natural language interaction with our data.
• Data Storytelling: Don't just build the model; sell the solution. You will visualize your findings (using Looker, Tableau, or custom coding) to make complex data intuitive for business stakeholders.
• Collaboration: Partner closely with Marketing and Product teams to translate their business goals into technical data requirements.

Qualifications

Your Experience

• Education & Experience:
  
  • Bachelor's degree with 5+ years of related experience; OR
  • Master's degree with 3+ years of related experience; OR
  • PhD in a quantitative field (Computer Science, AI, Statistics, Physics, etc.) with 1+ years of experience (academic research applies).
• Core Tech Stack: Expert proficiency in Python (Pandas, Scikit-learn) and strong, complex SQL skills.
• Cloud Fluency: Experience working within cloud data ecosystems (Google Cloud Platform, AWS, or Azure). Familiarity with BigQuery and Vertex AI is a significant plus.
• Engineering Mindset: Unlike a pure academic researcher, you have a "builder" mentality. You are willing to get your hands dirty with data cleaning, pipeline construction, and deployment logic.
• Dash-boarding Experience: Prior experience developing dashboards in Tableau/Looker or similar data viz platform.
• Communication: Demonstrated ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences and visualize data effectively.
• Preferred
• Generative AI Depth: Hands-on experience with LLMs, RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation), or agentic frameworks.
• Marketing Analytics: Familiarity with Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM), Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA), or Lift Analysis.
• Advanced Modeling: Experience with causal inference, time-series forecasting, or optimization techniques.
• Visualization Tools: Experience building dashboards in Tableau, Looker, or Streamlit.

Additional Information

The Team

Working at a high-tech cybersecurity company within Information Technology is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You'll join the brightest minds in technology, creating, building, and supporting tools and enabling our global teams on the front line of defense against cyberattacks.

We're connected by one mission but driven by the impact of that mission and what it means to protect our way of life in the digital age. Join a dynamic and fast-paced team of people who feel excited by the prospect of a challenge and feel a thrill at resolving technical gaps that inhibit productivity.

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 $141,000 - $228,050/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

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.

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