# Principal Security Researcher (AI-Assisted Vulnerability Research) at Palo Alto Networks

- Company: Palo Alto Networks
- What the company does: Implement Zero Trust, Secure your Network, Cloud workloads, Hybrid Workforce, Leverage Threat Intelligence & Security Consulting. Cybersecurity Services & Education for CISO’s, Head of Infrastructure, Network Security Engineers, Cloud Architects & SOC Managers. Backed by Greylock, Sequoia and Felicis.
- Company website: https://www.paloaltonetworks.com/
- Type: Startups (AI role)
- Level: Principal and up
- Location: Santa Clara, United States of America
- Work setup: On-site
- Posted: 2026-09-15
- Apply by: 2026-10-30
- Apply: https://paloaltonetworks.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/panwexternalcareers/job/Santa-Clara-United-States-of-America/Principal-Security-Researcher--AI-Assisted-Vulnerability-Research-_JR-018442-1
- Page: https://www.1752.vc/careers/jobs/palo-alto-networks-principal-security-researcher-ai-assisted-vulnerability-resea/

## About the role

This is a research-heavy role for a self-directed researcher-builder. The ideal candidate can independently identify high-impact security problems, build reliable harnesses and evaluation pipelines, analyze large-scale vulnerability data, and drive projects toward concrete outcomes such as improved harness capabilities, validated findings, technical reports, benchmarks, responsible disclosures, open-source tools, CVEs where appropriate, or production-impacting security workflows.

## What they're looking for

- Master's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, or a related technical field, or equivalent practical experience
- Demonstrated ability to independently drive a technical research project from problem formulation to implementation, evaluation, and written results
- 7+ years of experience in vulnerability research, offensive security research, reverse engineering, fuzzing, exploit development, program analysis, security automation, or a closely related security research role
- Demonstrated experience in one or more of the following: vulnerability research, reverse engineering, fuzzing, exploit development, root-cause analysis, exploitability assessment, PoC development, patch analysis, program analysis, or security tooling
- Experience designing or building reproducible security experiments, including target setup, harness development, validation logic, oracle design, evaluation metrics, false-positive analysis, or reporting workflows
- Strong programming skills. Strong knowledge of modern operating systems, network protocols, application security, software vulnerability classes, and common exploitation or validation techniques