Palo Alto Senior Competitive Strategy Analyst 

United States, California 

362675501

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Your Career

You will perform hands-on technical evaluations to provide product managers and engineering leadership with an objective assessment of Palo Alto Networks’ market position. Your analysis will go beyond feature comparisons and delve into the architectural and implementation details of competing solutions. You will help maintain our position as the market leader and educate internal teams on the competitive landscape.

To be successful in this position, you must possess a deep understanding of networking and security technologies, demonstrated through hands-on experience configuring, deploying, and troubleshooting security products. Strong analytical skills and a passion for cybersecurity are essential, as is the ability to bridge customer business requirements with key competitive and market trends. You have a proven track record of performing detailed technical competitive analyses, demonstrating hands-on experience with security products, specifically within the SASE domain, and collaborating with key stakeholders.

Your Impact

• This role reports to the Director of Competitive Strategy for our Network Security business unit and provides insights on competitor strategies, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and strategic plans

• This strategic role is centered around maintaining and accelerating Palo Alto Networks’ advantages in a highly competitive network security industry through deep technical understanding of the competitive landscape.

• This hands-on role requires analyzing product functionality, capabilities, and platforms at a deep technical feature level, including performing detailed configurations and testing of products.

• The successful candidate will be very clear-minded, inventive, collaborative, data-driven, objective, and able to see trends before they happen by staying deeply engaged with the technical aspects of the market.

• You’ll help develop our forward-looking product strategies with the product leaders, providing objective technical insights and competitive analysis to pressure test the strategy, ensuring a great outcome while remaining collaborative to arrive at unified recommendations.

Your Experience

• BS/MS in computer science, engineering, networking, or related technical field, or equivalent experience or equivalent experience required

• 8+ years in the cybersecurity industry, with a strong focus on network security and hands-on experience with security products.

• 2+ years of experience designing, deploying, configuring, and managing SASE products (e.g., SSE, SD-WAN, DEM, ZTNA, Enterprise Browser, etc.) in a production or lab environment. Demonstrable experience with at least two different vendor solutions is preferred.

• Experience with AI technologies (e.g., Security co-pilots, LLMs, etc.) within the context of security products.

• Preferred candidates will have exposure to both competitive intelligence and cybersecurity

• Strong (written and verbal) communication and presentation skills, with the ability to address audiences of differing technical backgrounds

• Strong interpersonal skills contributing to cross-functional teams

• Experience in fast-paced environments with overlapping projects/deliverables

• Passion for working with technical individuals and a proven ability to distill complex concepts into easy-to-understand stakeholder briefings

• A consultative approach and an aptitude for translating market dynamics and technical findings into actionable recommendations.

• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills required

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 $121000 - $196000/YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found .

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.