Staff Site Reliability Engineer

About This Role

This Staff Site Reliability Engineer role focuses on building and operating reliable, scalable, and secure cloud technology platforms. It combines expertise in cloud operations, automation, and observability to improve infrastructure performance and reliability, with a strong emphasis on applying AI and machine learning to IT operations. The role involves working in a large-scale, multi-cloud production environment supporting tens of thousands of enterprise customers worldwide, pioneering the next generation of intelligent infrastructure operations.

Responsibilities

• Own and operate large-scale, global production environments with an AI focus, leveraging AIOps and machine learning to drive autonomous operations
• Pioneer AI-driven automation: Implement LLM-powered runbooks, AI-assisted incident diagnostics, and intelligent alerting systems that predict issues before they impact customers
• Design self-healing infrastructure: Build systems that leverage AI for automated incident remediation, anomaly detection, and proactive service monitoring
• Lead architecture, deployment, and operations of Kong API Gateway infrastructure, including rate limiting, authentication, traffic management, and plugin customization
• Design, deploy, and manage production-grade GKE clusters, including cluster upgrades, node pool management, workload optimization, and multi-tenancy
• Implement predictive scalability: Use AI modeling to forecast resource needs, prevent bottlenecks, and optimize capacity planning across GKE and cloud infrastructure
• Actively monitor, investigate, and resolve P1/P2 incidents using AI-assisted diagnostics and automated playbooks
• Drive end-to-end troubleshooting across complex, distributed systems, augmented by AI tools for faster root cause analysis
• Implement and maintain Infrastructure as Code using Terraform and Helm, integrating with AI APIs for intent-based infrastructure management
• Champion "vibe coding" workflows: Leverage AI coding assistants (GitHub Copilot, Claude) to accelerate development, focusing on high-level architecture and intent while AI handles boilerplate
• Develop and maintain automation and tooling (Python, Bash, Go) with AI-augmented development practices
• Create AI-powered operational runbooks using Generative AI for faster documentation, knowledge sharing, and incident response
• Contribute to a culture of AI-first operational excellence in a high-scale, high-availability environment
• On-call responsibilities: Daytime hours with occasional weekends and holidays (rotation-based)

Requirements

• 6–10 years of experience in SRE/DevOps roles in production environments at scale
• Linux Expert: Deep hands-on experience managing and supporting Linux (RHEL/Ubuntu) at scale, including kernel tuning and system internals
• AI/ML Integration Experience: Hands-on experience or strong interest in AIOps platforms and tools
• Strong hands-on experience with Kubernetes
• Strong hands-on experience with API Gateway (Kong)
• Strong hands-on experience with GCP (required); AWS or Azure experience is a plus
• Mastery of Terraform for infrastructure provisioning and management
• Familiarity with CI/CD and GitOps tools (GitLab CI, GitHub Actions, ArgoCD, Flux)
• Proficiency in Python for scripting, automation, and AI/ML integrations
• Proven track record leading P1/P2 incident bridges and post-mortems for complex, global application stacks
• Strong troubleshooting and problem-solving skills with a passion for incident handling
• Fluent in security, vulnerability management, and CIS compliance
• Highly responsive, proactive, and ownership-driven
• The AI-First Mindset: Possess the "vibe coding" spirit, leveraging AI to solve complex problems faster without losing the critical eye of a senior engineer, and excited about transforming traditional SRE practices with intelligent automation

Nice to have:

• Experience with Service Mesh (Istio, Kong Mesh)
• Certifications: CKA, CKAD, Google Cloud Professional
• Experience building or integrating with AIOps platforms

Why This Role is Different

• AI-Assisted Incident Response: Using LLMs to accelerate diagnostics and automate remediation
• Predictive Operations: Moving from reactive firefighting to proactive, AI-driven prevention
• Intelligent Automation: Building systems that learn, adapt, and self-heal
• Next-Gen Tooling: Shaping how AI transforms infrastructure engineering

Important Details

• Work format: most teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it's needed
• Immigration Sponsorship: Not eligible for work visa sponsorship for this position

About the Company

At Palo Alto Networks®, the company's mission is to protect the digital way of life. They thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. They are committed to being the cybersecurity partner of choice, trailblazing the path and shaping the future of the industry through values of Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. They weave AI into the fabric of everything they do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have.