Sr Manager, SQA Automation Engineering

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

The Strata Cloud Manager is our flagship, public-cloud-delivered platform designed to operationalize the world's most complex network security deployments. As we scale this multi-tenant solution across physical, virtual, and containerized form factors, we are looking for a visionary Senior Manager who balances rigorous engineering standards with a relentless AI-First mindset.

You will lead a high-performing team of engineers, fostering a culture of empowerment and collaboration. This is not just a management role; it is an opportunity to own the end-to-end quality strategy for a platform at the forefront of cybersecurity innovation.

Your Impact

• Strategic Leadership: Build and mentor a world-class QE team. You will drive individual growth and collective impact, ensuring your team has the tools and coaching to excel.
• AI Transformation: Revolutionize the QA lifecycle by leveraging Artificial Intelligence to accelerate test generation, refactoring, and debugging. You will stay at the cutting edge of AI-based testing methodologies to boost engineering productivity.
• Cross-Functional Partnership: Align with Product Management, UX, SRE, and Dev teams to shape multi-quarter roadmaps and ensure quality is baked into the product from day one.
• Operational Excellence: Own production readiness. You will enforce best practices around deployment, observability, and runtime stability to ensure a secure, scalable customer experience.
• Customer Advocacy: Engage directly with strategic customers for technical deep dives and architecture reviews, using those insights to influence the product direction.
• Technical Ownership: Oversee the development of robust automation frameworks for REST APIs and UIs, ensuring high-quality delivery across AWS, Google Cloud Platform, and Azure.

Qualifications
Key Responsibilities

• Quality Lifecycle: Translate product strategy into executable test plans, covering functional, system, endurance, and scale testing.
• Automation Architecture: Lead the design and maintenance of automation frameworks and tools that enable continuous, confident releases.
• Infrastructure & CI/CD: Expand and build both functional and system testbeds; maintain and optimize GitLab CI/CD pipelines.
• Network & Cloud Mastery: Debug complex issues across L2-L7 protocols, TCP/IP networking, and cloud-native environments (Docker/Kubernetes).
• Troubleshooting & Triage: Lead the team in debugging customer-reported issues, verifying fixes, and integrating new test cases to prevent regressions.

Your Experience

• The Essentials: 12+ years of experience in SDET roles, with proven experience in a leadership/management capacity.
• Automation Expert: Strong proficiency in Python (Pytest) for API testing and JavaScript/Selenium/Playwright for UI automation.
• Cloud & Networking: Deep knowledge of TCP/IP Networking and Network Security. Hands-on experience with AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud Platform is required.
• AI Advocate: A demonstrated passion for applying innovative AI-based tools to accelerate coding and testing processes.
• Modern Tooling: Experience with GitLab CI/CD, Linux, and virtualization (ESXi) or containerization (Docker/K8s).
• Education: BS or MS in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field.

Nice to Have

• Experience testing networking and security products
• Proven track record of managing distributed teams in a fast-paced, high-growth cloud environment.

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/com-missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

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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

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.