> AI agents: this is one page of Nextmove’s FDE site, in Markdown. Nextmove is a job board and free career service for forward deployed engineers (FDEs). Each posting is classified from its text, not its title: the kind of work, how much of it is production code, pre-sales weight, time at customer sites, travel, remote arrangement, level and posted base pay. The site also publishes the aggregates: median pay by level, metro, company and kind of work, and which companies started hiring FDEs each week. Every page under https://nextmove.md/fde is served this way; the index of pages is https://nextmove.md/llms.txt.

# Sr. Forward Deployed Engineer (Customer Engineering, Prisma AIRS)

Canonical URL: https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/7962c42156b29600

Palo Alto Networks posts a senior FDE role to build what the customer runs in CA, TX, NY, at $156,400–$253,000 base, above the senior FDE median of $190,000 across 1,864 postings with pay. Integrate Prisma AIRS with customer services, API meshes, and multi-cloud architectures. Read from the employer’s posting on November 8, 2026.

- [Palo Alto Networks](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/palo-alto-networks)

First seen Oct 24, 2026 · open on Workday as of Nov 8, 2026

**$156,400–$253,000** CA, TX, NY On-site

Integrate Prisma AIRS with customer services, API meshes, and multi-cloud architectures.

- [See roles that fit me](https://nextmove.md/sign-up?from=%2Ffde%2Fjobs%2F7962c42156b29600&placement=top)
- [View posting at Palo Alto Networks](https://paloaltonetworks.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/panwexternalcareers/job/Office---USA---CA---Headquarters/Sr-Forward-Deployed-Engineer--Customer-Engineering--Prisma-AIRS-_JR-020970)

Free. Upload your resume once, see why each FDE role fits, and get introduced only when you say so.

## At a glance

### Posted base pay

$156K–$253K Above the median

Midpoint $205K · median $190K

This job $156K to $253K. Senior FDE postings, 1,864 postings: the middle 50% of posted pay is $160K to $220K, median $190K.

### The work

Builds what the customer runs

Balance **Mostly building**

Project stages

1. Pre-sales (not covered)
2. Proof of concept (not covered)
3. Implementation
4. Operations

- **Coding**: Writes production code

- **Builds for**: External customers

- **Level**: Senior

- **Role**: Technical lead

### What they ask for

Experience

- **7+ years** professional software engineering writing production-grade code

Background

- **Software engineering**

Visa

- **Sponsors visas**

### Do you meet what the posting states?

The posting asks for 7+ years. How many do you have?

The posting reads as a senior role. What level are you at now?

The job is in CA, TX, NY. Could you work there?

Which of these have you used in production?

Answer each one. Nothing is saved or sent.

[What postings ask for, by background →](https://nextmove.md/fde/paths)

## Conditions

- **Location**: CA, TX, NY

- **Work arrangement**: On-site

- **Visa sponsorship**: Available

- **Pay**:

## More like this

[Fortreum](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/fortreum)

### [Cleared Senior Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/42baa132d5ba4f8f)

Fort Meade, MD Hybrid 2mo ago

$180,000–$260,000

[Anduril](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/anduril)

### [Software Engineer, Front End](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/d904c0d3089ee144)

Reston, VA 4mo ago

$167,000–$222,000

[Casca](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/casca)

### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/927bef3af6c8393d)

San Francisco, CA On-site 4w ago

$160,000–$265,000

- [Other jobs at Palo Alto Networks (2)](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/palo-alto-networks)

## The job description from Palo Alto Networks

### 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

As a Forward Deployed Engineer (FDE) for Prisma AIRS, you are a hands-on developer and systems architect who embeds with customer engineering teams. You write production code, design low-latency topologies, and build custom plugins to ship secure enterprise AI workloads to production. You bridge the gap between customer production environments and core engineering, extending the platform edge while directly contributing code back to the core Prisma AIRS engine.

### Key Responsibilities

- Write production-grade code (Python, Go, TypeScript) to integrate Prisma AIRS with microservices, API meshes, and multi-cloud architectures.
- Build custom middleware/plugins for identity-aware policies, prompt security, dynamic routing, and telemetry pipelines.
- Develop automated deployment modules (Terraform, Helm, Kubernetes) and SDK wrappers.
- Optimize high-throughput, low-latency traffic paths including streaming payloads, caching, and load balancing.
- Lead Architectural Design Reviews (ADRs) with customer Principal Engineers and CISOs for zero-trust deployments.
- Deploy hybrid, multi-cloud, or VPC-isolated gateway topologies across multi-LLM providers (OpenAI, Anthropic, Bedrock, local vLLM).
- Serve as the tier-3 engineering point of contact for live production systems, debugging distributed systems bottlenecks.
- Analyze OpenTelemetry/Prometheus traces to diagnose edge-case failures in AI agent frameworks like LangChain, LlamaIndex, and AutoGen.
- Upstream custom plugins, bug fixes, and edge integrations directly into core product repositories.
- Partner with Product and Core SWE to turn enterprise architectural patterns into platform features.
- Convert customer implementations into reusable reference architectures, deployment patterns, and automation frameworks.
- Identify feature gaps, usability improvements, and operational pain points to influence the product roadmap.

### Qualifications

### Required Qualifications

- Education & Experience: Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, AI, Machine Learning, or a related field (or equivalent practical experience), or 7+ years of professional software engineering experience writing production-grade code.
- Core Software & API Development: Expertise in Python (preferred), Go, TypeScript, or C++, with deep experience developing, debugging, and integrating enterprise APIs (REST, gRPC, WebSockets) and API gateways (e.g., Envoy, Kong).
- AI & LLM Architecture: Hands-on experience with LLM orchestration, prompt security, token optimization, model routing, and vector databases / RAG architectures.
- Infrastructure & Cloud Native: Proficiency with containerization, orchestration, and infrastructure-as-code (Kubernetes, Docker, Terraform) across major cloud platforms (AWS, GCP, or Azure).
- Security & Networking: Solid understanding of enterprise security protocols including OIDC/OAuth2, zero-trust networking, and secure API integration.
- Testing & Quality Assurance: Experience using testing frameworks (e.g., PyTest, unittest) and robust evaluation workflows for distributed systems.
- Customer & Strategic Impact: Proven ability to interface directly with executive leadership (CIOs/CISOs) and IT decision-makers—whiteboarding enterprise architectures, translating complex customer needs, and directly influencing product roadmaps.
- Engineering Mindset: A hands-on "0-to-1" builder mentality who thrives in ambiguous environments, owns problems end-to-end, and enjoys pair-programming or digging into raw code and traces to solve live outages.

### Preferred Qualifications

- AI Evaluation & Frameworks: Familiarity with LLM evaluation frameworks (e.g., LangChain, LlamaIndex, OpenAI Evals) and model performance/benchmarking metrics.
- AI Safety & Adversarial Testing: Practical knowledge of AI security guardrails, bias detection, prompt injection defense, and adversarial testing practices.
- Observability & Monitoring: Hands-on experience with enterprise observability, tracing, and log-monitoring systems (e.g., Datadog, OpenTelemetry, Prometheus).
- Simulation & Synthetic Data: Exposure to synthetic data generation, automated data pipelines, and test simulation environments.

### 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.

$156,400.00 - $253,000.00/yr

### 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 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.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?: Yes

[View posting at Palo Alto Networks](https://paloaltonetworks.wd5.myworkdayjobs.com/panwexternalcareers/job/Office---USA---CA---Headquarters/Sr-Forward-Deployed-Engineer--Customer-Engineering--Prisma-AIRS-_JR-020970)

## About Palo Alto Networks

Provides network, cloud, identity, AI, and security operations products and services to protect enterprise and government customers from cyber threats.

Public · 5000+ people

## Similar jobs

[Raft](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/raft)

### [Senior Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/1e9109507935f142)

Fort Hood, TX On-site 2mo ago

$160,000–$220,000

[Rune Technologies](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/rune-technologies)

### [Forward Deployed Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/bddbcbbe4ac91eed)

Honolulu, HI On-site 4mo ago

$190,000–$210,000

[Amentum](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/amentum)

### [AI Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/3ae7d168252e69b1)

Hanover, MD Hybrid 3w ago

$195,000–$250,000

[Edison Scientific](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/edison-scientific)

### [Member of Technical Staff, Cloud Software Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/ec956d3e06abdc40)

San Francisco, CA On-site 2mo ago

$175,000–$240,000

[Solve Intelligence](https://nextmove.md/fde/companies/solve-intelligence)

### [US Infrastructure Engineer](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs/adae2925ba9aa5a1)

New York, NY On-site New · 3d ago

$120,000–$250,000

- [Compare senior FDE salary ranges](https://nextmove.md/fde/salary/senior)
- [Similar jobs that build what the customer runs](https://nextmove.md/fde/jobs?role=builds-for-customers)

Hiring at Palo Alto Networks and want this page changed or removed? Email info@nextmove.md and we take it down.

Employer postings · [How we read postings](https://nextmove.md/fde/method)