Manager, Systems Engineer - Strategic Accounts

Company Description

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!

Job Description

Your Career

As our Systems Engineer Manager, you are the technical leader for your District 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 cyber threats 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, 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 for training, mentoring, and reviewing 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
• Provide effective technical leadership in customer interactions, including sharing security trends and standard methodologies employed by other customers to actively be part of the selling process
• Be a part of and drive technical account planning to ensure technical preference for our platform in each opportunity
• To be an interchangeable business partner with your District Sales Manager by assisting in operationalizing key initiatives and planning.
• 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 position 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
• Maintain a general understanding of competitor selling strategies
• 50-75% travel within the region

Qualifications

Your Experience

• 2+ years experience as a Systems Engineer Manager
• 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
• A quota-driven attitude focused on the client's best solution by being a trusted advisor

Additional Information

The Team

As part of our Systems Engineering team, you’ll support the sales te