Manager, Systems Engineering (SASE) - Presales - Palo Alto Networks

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

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

Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Our Approach to Work

We lead with flexibility and choice in all of our people programs. We have disrupted the traditional view that all employees have the same needs and wants. We offer personalization and offer our employees the opportunity to choose what works best for them as often as possible - from your wellbeing support to your growth and development, and beyond!

Your Career

As a Systems Engineering Manager, you are the technical leader for the Systems Engineering team. You will work closely with the District Sales Manager and, along with your team, build relationships with your customers with the goal of helping them detect and prevent advanced cyberattacks and breaches. Our customers need guidance on what applications to deploy from our platform. Your guidance, expertise, and mentorship of your team of SEs will keep them ahead of the latest cyberthreats and staying on the leading edge of prevention. 

We are looking for a leader to develop our sales teams, providing training and technical support as a product expert. Additionally, you will provide feedback to the product management team on new feature requests and product improvements based on what you learn from your customer base. Your team, in partnership with the sales account managers, will displace competitor technologies and build market share within your targeted list of major accounts, and most importantly, help your client sleep at night as they use our products to build secure digital transactions. 

Your Impact

• Recruit and hire new systems engineers into the territory, hiring the best talent in the industry
• Responsible to train, mentor, and review employees on your team, keeping them engaged and successful in their careers 
• Support field systems engineer team in complex evaluations, problem-solving and challenging customer environments
• Define and create an updated system engineering training curriculum
• Develop relationships with channel partners and their technical teams to ensure colleagues are appropriately trained and can support our installations
• Provide effective technical leadership in customer interactions to include sharing security trends and standard methodologies employed by other customers to actively be part of the selling process
• Act as a floating systems engineer and fill in for existing team members if there is a resource conflict or vacation coverage challenge
• Act as an escalation point for pre-sales and post-sales technical issues that arise 
• Build and maintain relationships with key customers to solidify reference accounts and to assist the account teams with defining plans to drive more business
• Present to customers as our expert in your area at all levels in the customer hierarchy from technician to CIO
• Lead conversations about industry trends and emerging changes to the security landscape that every customer needs to plan for 
• Discuss competitor products in the marketplace and positions ours as the best alternative
• Working with Product Management, Technical Marketing, and R&D to build requirements and product features for our large customers and provide feedback from customers 
• Provide design consultation and standard methodology mentorship for rollout, implementation, and policy conversion during the 'pre-sales' process for strategic opportunities
• Ownership of advanced 'proof of concept' testing in strategic accounts either at the customer site or our lab facilities
• Provide advanced 'Partner SE' training for updates in our product suite
• Maintain a general understanding of competitor selling strategies
• 50-75% travel within the region

Your Experience

• Experience as a pre-sales System Engineer Manager
• Experience as a Senior System Engineer or Consulting Engineering
• Industry knowledge of security product market trends and directional awareness of our roadmap and technology development efforts, knowledge of competitor offerings and products 
• Knowledge of how to deliver comprehensive security solutions to Palo Alto Networks customer base
• Strong communication (written and verbal) and presentation skills
• Quota driven attitude focused on client's best solution by being a trusted advisor 

The Team

As part of our Systems Engineering team, you’ll support the sales team with technical expertise and guidance when establishing trust with key clients. You won’t find someone at Palo Alto Networks that isn’t committed to your success – with everyone pitching in to assist when it comes to solutions selling, learning, and development. As a member of our systems engineering team, you are motivated by a solutions-focused sales environment and find fulfillment in working with clients to resolve incredible complex cyberthreats. 

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.

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 $218,600/yr to $300,650/yr. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.