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. 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 a Principal Solutions Architect at Palo Alto Networks you are responsible for the technical strategy throughout the life of our most strategic partnerships. You function as a technical advisor and advocate, thought leader, and executive partner to our prospects, customers, and sales teams. As a Principal Solutions Architect you pick up where our executive relationships from our CEO, CPO and CRO leave off and balance business and technical acumen to function as the executive partner for technical strategy and execution. As the technical strategy owner you are responsible for aligning our solutions to prospect and customers problems, priorities, environment, challenges, politics, and architecture, You provide guidance on how to architect Palo Alto Networks solutions into customer environments and articulate the Palo Alto Networks point of view for solving complex security challenges as the benchmark for success.. As an executive partner you are responsible for improving the productivity of our sales teams through the creation and delivery of business-relevant security conversations for and our key prospects and customers. You also build trust with our champions and decision makers to influence their buying criteria and work alongside our account teams to uplevel our selling approach and execution. **Your Impact** 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 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 **Qualifications**: **Your Experience** - Proven experience in pre-sales is highly preferable. We will also consider applicants with consulting experience - Extensive knowledge of network and endpoint security architectures, history, and trends - Solid fundamental networking background - 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 - "Whatever it takes" attitude and motivation to do whatever is necessary to close deals - BSCS or equivalent experience or equivalent military experience required and 10+ years of experience as an end customer and/or as a vendor - 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, including customer and Palo Alto Networks location onsite meetings - Strong communication (written and verbal) and presentation skills - Robust problem finding and solving skills, ability to analyze complex multivariate problems, and systematic approach to gain quick resolution, even under duress - Fluent German l