Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.
Your Career
The Principal Solutions Architect’s value is measured in their ability to increase sales productivity by:
- Play a key role on the EBC team in creating customer messaging that ties together the entire Palo Alto Networks Portfolio
- Compelling communication to gain the trust and buy-in from Vice President and CXO contacts at our largest customers and prospects
- Setting and driving an agenda with the customer or prospect, both directly and with sales teams, and within the market through various engagements, including client workshops and architectural assessments and designs
- Developing and maintaining a deep understanding of competing solutions and architectures and being able to successfully position a Palo Alto Networks approach
- Uncovering new technology applications and use cases and aiding in creating presentations, documents, and deliverables that will illustrate value to prospects and customers and the Palo Alto Networks sales teams
- Uncovering and documenting technological/business value gaps between the Palo Alto Networks platform and competitive offerings and communicating these to the broader Palo Alto Networks Sales organization
- Becoming a valued resource to Product Management to discover and understand current shortcomings and competitive insights in our product suite and requirements for future strategic market segments
- The role will require close coordination with the EBC Team, Senior Leadership, Sales, Palo Alto Networks’ CISO and Theater CISO’s, Sales Engineering leadership, Product Management, Marketing, Channel Partners, and the Consulting Engineering team
- This is a senior technical customer-facing role, and the value produced must be evident and recurrent
- Customers and Sales Teams will ask for you by name
Your Impact
- Engage and establish an advisory relationship with key Manager, Director, VP, and CXO contacts at strategic customers to transform their security strategy
- Educate prospects and customers on how network security is evolving, accelerated by a hybrid workforce and cloud and SaaS application adoption, and work with them to develop a successful strategy for their organization to implement a Palo Alto Networks solution
- Engage directly with senior technical and business leaders at key prospects and customers as a security expert to penetrate whitespace accounts and expand Palo Alto Networks’ install base through the Identification, qualification, and closure of opportunities
- Work with the sales teams on strategic opportunities for the development and delivery of differentiated proposals which clearly demonstrate the business and technical value of the Palo Alto Networks
- Provide summarized and business-relevant feedback into content, Product Management, Product Marketing, Competitive Marketing, and Field Marketing based on customer engagements to improve Palo Alto Networks effectiveness in communicating its value proposition to prospects and clients
- Engage in continuous self-improvement and learning to maintain technical leadership of relevant technologies (security, data center, public cloud, networking, endpoint, etc.)
- Work closely with the theater CISO, Architect and Business Value resources to ensure that you maintain a coordinated market approach
Your Experience
- Self-motivated
- "Whatever it takes" attitude and motivation to do whatever is necessary to close deals
- Extensive knowledge of network and endpoint security architectures, history, and trends
- Knowledge of ancillary security areas such as identity management, SIEM, public, and private cloud architectures
- Demonstrable experience in establishing credibility and strategic messaging with large enterprise customers
- BSCS or equivalent or equivalent military experience required and 10+ years of experience as an end customer and/or as a vendor
- Solid fundamental networking background
- Expect to travel a minimum of 50%+ of the weeks in the fiscal year - This is a global role and will require travel both in theater and internationally - Travel will include customer and Palo Alto Networks location onsite meetings
- Strong communication (written and verbal) and presentation skills, both internally and externally
- Robust problem finding and solving skills, ability to analyze complex multivariate problems, and systematic approach to gain quick resolution, even under duress
- Super organizational skills
Preferences
- Experience working with channel partners and understanding a channel-centric go-to-market approach
- Experience working with companies in the enterprise security space
- End customer background to validate your perspective with customers
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 $239,000/yr to $278,500/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.
