Senior Competitive Strategy Analyst

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.

FLEXWORK is an employee-centric reimagining of how we work. We built FLEXWORK based on employee feedback – it is about flexibility, trust, and choice whenever possible. It’s been a journey of disruption that has yielded the best of our values. We offer as much flexibility as possible, and choices that enable you to be most productive, including benefits that meet your needs and learning opportunities that you feel passionate about.

Job Description

Your Career

Palo Alto Networks has a world-class product management organization and continues to look for top-notch talent to expand the team. As a Senior Competitive Strategy Analyst at Palo Alto Networks, you will be responsible for defining the future of network security services and continuing to drive innovation into our network security portfolio. This role provides you an opportunity to define the future of the security subscriptions industry by solving key problems for our customers and reestablishing what’s possible in this space.

You will be responsible for analyzing a set of competitors to provide product managers and engineering leadership with an objective assessment of Palo Alto Networks’ position in the market. You will help maintain our position as the market leader as well as educate internal teams on the competitive landscape. 

To be successful in this position, you must possess a combination of strong technical acumen, analytical skills, as well as a passion for cybersecurity while bridging customer business requirements with key competitive and market trends. You have a track record of building actionable competitive analysis, conducting hands-on testing of competitor products, and collaborating with key stakeholders. 

We expect office-based employees to be in the office four days per week, with one day working from where they choose. We believe being together facilitates casual conversations and those magic moments where we can work on issues and ideas informally. These moments build capability and deepen trusted relationships and allow our people to feel safe in taking risks and being disruptive. Like so many companies, we are working through the details and things could change …. but in general if a role is deemed office-based we want our teams to be together four days per week.

Your Impact

• This role reports to the Senior Manager of Competitive Strategy for our Network Security business unit and provides insights on competitor strategies, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats, and strategic plans
• This is a strategic role centered around helping position Palo Alto Networks’ advantages in a highly competitive network security industry
• This role is a combination of strategic and hands-on responsibilities that include analyzing product functionality, capabilities, and platforms at the technical feature level
• The successful candidate will be very clear-minded, inventive, collaborative, data-driven, objective, and able to see trends before they happen
• You’ll help develop our forward-looking product strategies with the product leaders, providing enough tension in the process to ensure a great outcome, yet collaborative to arrive at unified recommendations

Qualifications

Your Experience

• BS/MS or equivalent experience or equivalent military experience required 
• 8+ years in the cybersecurity industry, network security preferred
• 2+ years experience working with and using security subscription services (e.g., IPS, DNS, sandbox, IoT, OT, etc.)
• Must have competitive intelligence experience in cybersecurity
• Very strong (written and verbal) communication and presentation skills
• 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 creative analysis
• A consultative approach and an aptitude for translating market dynamics into actionable recommendations
• Proven analytical and problem-solving skills required

Additional Information

The Team

To stay ahead of the curve, it’s critical to know where the curve is, and how to anticipate the changes we’re facing. For the f