Sr. Dir. Security Research (WildFire)

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

About WildFire

WildFire, deployed globally, is our cloud-delivered security service and an advanced malware analysis platform. WildFire is a highly successful and rapidly growing cloud security service, continuously evolving to combat sophisticated cyber threats.

Your Career

As the Sr. Director of Security Research for WildFire Engineering, you will lead a critical function at the intersection of cutting-edge security research and robust engineering. You will be responsible for defining the future of malware analysis and prevention within the WildFire platform, driving innovation, and ensuring our capabilities stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape. This is a strategic leadership role that requires a deep passion for security, a strong background in building mission-critical cloud services, and the ability to lead a team at the epicenter of cybersecurity innovation.

Your Impact

• Lead Security Research Strategy: Define and execute the strategic vision for WildFire's security research, including identifying emerging threats, developing novel detection techniques, and evolving our analysis capabilities. This includes pioneering AI research and development to enhance our detection efficacy.

• Drive Innovation: Foster a culture of innovation within the team, encouraging the exploration of new technologies (e.g., advanced AI/ML for threat detection), research methodologies, and proactive threat intelligence gathering. You'll also drive initiatives around AI Model Scanning to identify and mitigate risks within AI-driven systems.

• Team Leadership & Growth: Manage, mentor, and grow a globally distributed team of highly skilled engineers and managers. Foster a culture of deep technical curiosity, rapid innovation, and relentless focus on stopping threats for our customers.

• Strategic Execution: Lead the wildfire engineering team and collaborate with Product Management and the other cross functional teams to translate cutting-edge research into product reality. Drive an agile development process to rapidly deliver new analysis environments (e.g., Windows, macOS, Linux, Android) and detection capabilities.

• Threat Landscape Expertise: Maintain a comprehensive understanding of the global threat landscape, including adversary tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), malware trends, vulnerability exploits, and emerging threats related to AI systems.

• Operational Excellence: Ensure the ongoing effectiveness and performance of WildFire's detection capabilities, driving improvements in fidelity, coverage, and performance.

Qualifications

Your Experience 

• 10+ years of experience in cybersecurity, with at least 7 years in a senior leadership role including managing other managers.

• Deep expertise in malware analysis, reverse engineering, exploit analysis, and threat intelligence.

• Proven track record of delivering innovative security solutions and significantly impacting product capabilities, with a strong emphasis on leveraging and securing AI technologies.

• Strong understanding of cloud-native architectures and distributed systems. Experience with large-scale data processing for security analytics is a significant plus.

• Extensive experience with machine learning and artificial intelligence applied to cybersecurity problems (e.g., anomaly detection, classification, AI model scanning).

• Familiarity with public cloud environments (GCP, AWS, Azure) and their security implications.

• Exceptional communication and presentation skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related technical field; equivalent practical experience will also be considered.

Additional Information

The Team

We are the Threat Prevention and Cloud Service Infrastructure team.  We are at the core of our products and deliver the best of security services in the cloud to prevent cyberattacks. We are constantly innovating and challenging the way we, and the whole industry, think about cybersecurity. 

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 $250000 - $343500/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  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.