Principal Solutions Architect

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. We have the vision of a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. These aren’t easy goals to accomplish - but we’re not here for easy. We’re here for better. 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. We’re changing the nature of work. Palo Alto Networks is evolving to meet the needs of our employees now and in the future through FLEXWORK, our approach to how we work. From benefits to learning, location to leadership, we’ve rethought and recreated every aspect of the employee experience at Palo Alto Networks. And because it FLEXes around each individual employee based on their individual choices, employees are empowered to push boundaries and help us all evolve, together. **Job Description**: **Your Career** As a Principal Solutions Architect - Cloud at Palo Alto Networks, you are responsible for improving the productivity of our sales teams through the creation and delivery of business-relevant security conversations to our key prospects and customers. As a thought leader, you will address IT-related issues by leveraging Palo Alto Networks Cloud technologies in a way that creates differentiated business value. As a trusted advisor, you will provide valuable insights and education on effective risk reduction, compliance, governance, and cost reduction through a prevention first security approach based on the Palo Alto Networks security platform. **Your Impact** The role will require close coordination with 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 role customer-facing role, and the value produced must be evident and recurrent. Customers and Sales Teams will ask for you by name. - Engage and establish an advisory relationship with key Manager, Director, VP, and CXO contacts at strategic customers to transform their network security strategy to assist them in pursuing a secure cloud framework - Educate prospects and customers on how cloud security is evolving and work with them to develop a successful strategy for their organization to implement a Palo Alto Networks solution - Increase Prisma Cloud sales productivity - Impact, success, and compensation are measured against the assigned Region and Theater - Engage directly with senior technical and business leaders at key prospects and customers as a Cloud 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 Prisma Cloud - Lead monthly thought leadership calls with the Sales Team sharing insights and effective sales approaches derived through customer engagement to improve the Sales Teams’ effectiveness in communicating and closing business with prospects and clients - 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 (public, private and hybrid cloud) - Work closely with the theater CISO, CTO and Business Value resources to ensure that you maintain a coordinated market approach **Qualifications**: **Your Experience** - Self-motivated - "Whatever it takes" attitude and motivation to do whatever is necessary to close deals - Extensive knowledge of Public, Private and Hybrid Cloud - Knowledge of ancillary security areas such as identity management, SIEM, network and endpoint - Demonstrable experience in establishing credibility and strategic messaging with large enterprise customers - BSCS or equivalent and 10+ years of experience as an end customer and/or as a vendor or equivalent military experience required - 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 p