Developing Women’s Leadership Potential
Palo Alto Networks has been running a project called “Women in Cyber,” and I’ve had the privilege to expand this initiative with my team in Taiwan, China, and South Korea for the past year. I’ve been fortunate to have great dialogue with the women in the industry from our various sessions. And one of the most memorable moments was when, after a speech I gave in Seoul, a young Korean Ph.D. student approached me and asked me a question I loved: “What motivates you, Wenting?”
I was always motivated to achieve academically and to accelerate my path to a career. I started to seek out sources of motivation on my journey, and I learned quickly that I am most motivated by the achievements of others — seeing them be inspired, influenced, and empowered sets a great example for me. In the meantime, I continue to discover new sides of myself, and I hope to continue improving and inspiring others in order to give back to society.
The Journey to Becoming a Leader
I started my career as an individual contributor and then, over time, developed into a manager and people leader. As much as I enjoyed the autonomy and flexibility of being an individual contributor, I was excited when I saw what I can achieve through others, and this motivated me to shift to a new gear in terms of my own work. The myth I had believed was that as a manager, I would simply be delegating work to others in order to meet the goals set forth within a team and company, not making my own contributions.
As my management journey continued, I saw that both of these scenarios were the case. We all eventually would like to achieve business goals; however, achieving with excellence is difficult, and the business continually needs more talent. I started to realise that, as a leader, I was an enabler, and as such, my singular objective was to identify and amplify the strengths of those with whom I worked. It’s about understanding what motivates your employees and improves their wellbeing, and it’s about making this the best possible workplace for them.
Advice to Women for Developing Leadership Skills
If you’re looking to enter leadership yourself, I would recommend taking these steps for professional development:
Get a mentor. It’s never easy to be self-aware enough to identify and confront your vulnerabilities. One of the ways to do this that I have found effective is to have a work or life mentor. A mentor is just like a mirror showing me who I am and how I can transform those vulnerabilities into strengths. Although it is never comfortable to face our weaknesses or the parts of ourselves that need improvement, you might feel you embrace this new chapter when you find you’re more able to contribute at work and discover that you enjoy the new you that arises from the transformation.
Get out of your comfort zone and learn new things. Resilience can be developed. Getting out of our comfort zones and putting ourselves in situations where we can learn new things can unleash our potential. I was born and raised in Taiwan. When I was in my late twenties, I decided to live in North Africa for a few years and simply challenge the way I had been living. I wrote a series of articles about my journey in Morocco, from the beginning, when it was so hard to immerse myself in the culture, to the end of my time there, when I had eventually come to respect and appreciate all those differences. I would say my time there was one of my best life experiences because it opened my mind to places and people I had never before experienced.
Have a growth mindset. Continuing to learn and having a growth mindset are critical. The very first product for me to sell, more than 20 years ago, was a load balancing, disaster recovery system, which today is built by default on a laptop or a server today. The technology evolves, and we need to continue learning to keep up to speed and reflect the way we can contribute to society. While I am writing this article, the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting everyone’s life and the world economy. In order to tackle this, we must continually adapt to all types of situations, and making the best decision is never easy.
In my conversations with women leaders, for the most part, the views they’ve shared with regard to how they got where they are today and what their biggest challenges have been did not have anything to do with their gender. From my observations, the critical factors to their success have been their characteristics of resilience, adaptability, and a growth mindset — traits we should all develop on our own career journeys.
Everyone wants their voice to be heard, and everyone has a dream. If we can help others to fulfill their dreams and have their voices heard, that is a gift we all benefit from.
Discovering My Path
Neel Kattumadam, Software Engineering Intern
It may sound odd coming from someone who just finished a software engineering internship, but when I graduated high school, I wanted to be a doctor. I was accepted into UT Austin, and once I started college, however, I quickly realized that becoming a doctor was a fantasy, because it wasn’t my love for medicine that made me want to pursue that career. As corny as it may sound, what drew me to medicine was helping people with their problems and finding solutions for them. And that applied to technology as well as to medicine.
I had already been taking computer science courses, so I decided to pursue a career in that field. Once I graduated from UT Austin in May 2019, I started looking into graduate programs, and I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Science in information systems program, which I began last fall. I went into the program most interested in data science, but the more courses in software engineering that I took, the more I liked it.
So when it came time to start exploring internships for the coming summer, I applied to a host of computer science internships, including the Palo Alto Networks program. Its focus on software engineering was appealing to me, and over the course of this three-month program, I’ve decided that this is the career for me.
In general, my team was working on projects that, in several ways, allow us to customize our products to suit the customers’ needs and their unique work setups. My work in particular involved creating a best practices assessment. I came in after the sale had been made and the customer was learning how to best use the product. I love interacting with customers, helping solve their problems, and optimizing their products to improve the way they work, so this was exactly the kind of thing I set out to do!
It never felt like work to me. I never felt like it was a grind to work three or four hours on a project — instead, it was more like, “Oh cool, now I can learn more about this!” I don’t think I’ve ever experienced that with any other subject.
Going Remote
Of course, when I applied and was accepted for this internship, my expectation was that I would return home to the Bay Area from Austin, TX, and work at Palo Alto Networks’ headquarters. But the coronavirus changed everything, and in March I was told that my internship would be done remotely. I left school and moved home to Saratoga, CA, and I spent the three months of my internship working from home.
Surprisingly, I loved working remotely. I enjoyed being able to structure my own day rather than arriving at a designated time. I’m not exactly a morning person, and if I’d had to go to the office, I would have had to wake up early and then sit in traffic for 30 to 45 minutes just to be there on time. But because I was working remotely, I was able to adjust the schedule so that I was at my best — starting my day a little later in the morning and working a little later into the evening. Not only that but I enjoyed having flexibility in my work environment. Sometimes I worked at my desk, sometimes at the kitchen counter with my mom. Sometimes I worked straight through, and sometimes I took a break and watched the news with my family. I think this flexibility allowed me to stay fresh.
Of course, it wasn’t always easy. I think going to work in an office is definitely the best way to network. I only knew three or four interns in my class, and that may have been my fault, because I immediately started flooding myself with work, and I didn’t hop on as many Zoom events as I could have. The face-to-face connections you make with peers when you’re in a workplace are really valuable, so if there’s one drawback to working remotely, I’d say that was it.
However, even though I’ve been remote the entire time, Palo Alto Networks’ human resources and recruiting services are 100% better than any I’ve seen at any other company. I had done an internship the previous year with a large, established, very well-known company, and during that time I only spoke to the recruiter a couple of times and was invited to a couple of socials at bars, things like that. But even being entirely remote with Palo Alto Networks, this was hands-down a better experience for staying connected.
Almost every day, there were opportunities to socialize and connect with each other, to hear speakers share their ideas and experiences, and to learn about new technologies or ways to improve the work we were doing. We even played interactive games using Kahoot or other apps, and the prizes were incredible — an Apple watch, gift cards to Amazon, and more. Gestures like this demonstrate that the company’s doing well, which is reassuring, but also that interns are worth that level of investment. There are numerous small groups that we were part of as well, and in my group, the Global Customer Support group, there was a team of about 15 interns who met every week to share common interests, compare experiences, or ask advice.
In fact, my internship experience was so positive that my manager was able to get approval to extend my internship, giving me the ability to work for Palo Alto Networks part time while I continue school. I would highly recommend this experience, both for the tremendous learning and professional experience you’ll get as well as for the connections you’ll make along the way.
LEAP Sales Academy Offers Hot Career Prospects
Tara Aspin, Business Development Representative
As most people who are early in their careers know, finding a full-time job in your desired field right out of college is a challenge. As someone who’s interested in sales, what I often see is ads for positions that require one to two years’ experience. That may not seem like a lot, but even if you’ve worked a couple of internships, those are typically only about three months long, so by the time you graduate, you still fall short.
While I was completing my bachelor’s degree in Graphic Communication and Management at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, I took a summer internship with Cambridge CM, a construction management company in the Bay Area, California. That’s when I discovered Palo Alto Networks — Cambridge managed the building process of its new headquarters in Santa Clara. I grew interested when I saw the building and how well-appointed it was, so I started doing a little research into the company.
I didn’t really know anything about Palo Alto Networks, but I have always been interested in technology, and I knew cybersecurity was a growing field, so I was curious about whether they had any sales positions available. That’s when I discovered Palo Alto Network’s unique offerings for new grads, the LEAP program, and among its various academies was the Sales Academy. During this one-year program, I would get the opportunity to work as a full-time employee while also being given an opportunity to learn and develop my sales skills — all within the safe confines of an early-in-career program where I’m expected to be inexperienced and learning the ropes. Not only that but the company’s trajectory and workplace culture, from what I could see, seemed exciting to me, so I applied to the program.
Over the course of just a month, I interviewed with a recruiter and three different managers within the sales team, and by September 2019, I was part of the Business Development Representative team at Palo Alto Networks!
Inside the Academy
My year has certainly been exciting! Of the 10 of us in the Sales Academy, four of us were at headquarters, and we were able to work together in the office, collaborating and asking questions, so I had a fantastic support system and was never the odd one out. Early on, we would also do Zoom calls with the teams in Plano, Texas, and New York, learning about cybersecurity and all our products and verticals. We got to try our hand at making and delivering presentations, in groups and solo, which was tremendously helpful in building my confidence in working with customers.
Within about two months, we were each given a territory to cover, and I was assigned to our State, Local, and Education (SLED) accounts in the Northwest. I worked with other Business Development Reps and Field Reps to determine the best tactics for developing new business, and I discovered an array of prospecting tools. I got to work side by side with colleagues in an office for a few months before COVID hit and forced us all to work remotely from home. And although working from home brought new challenges, I no longer had to commute in Bay Area traffic (a definite plus!), and I was already very used to working with team members in other parts of the country, so conducting business and collaborating with peers virtually was something we were all used to doing already.
Valuable Lessons
One of the most important things I’ve received from the Sales Academy is confidence in speaking with customers. I’ve learned so much about how to help customer’s pain points with our products, and the work on presentations I’ve done has really prepared me to talk to customers in a professional way and to address their unique needs.
I’ve also learned a whole lot about time management since I had to manage my day-to-day work prospecting accounts while also making time to expand my product knowledge and prepare quality presentations I’d been assigned. That time-management training will serve me well as I grow in my career.
Early on, I was really intimidated about talking to more experienced team members within the company. I quickly realized that everyone was so helpful and really wanted me to succeed. It has been extremely valuable to set up internal calls with my coworkers, to pick their brains and learn about their career journeys in sales.
The company is certainly generous in terms of its perks — the fancy snack bars, donation matching, the stipends to help us cover home office expenses while working from home, and more. But more importantly, the generosity I’ve found in people who offer their time and commitment to my success has made all the difference. I look forward to continuing to grow in this role and learn even more about this industry and this company.
Culture of Empowerment
Since I was a kid, when my parents gave me a MacBook, I’ve been interested in technology. From there, I fell down the rabbit hole — I knew right away I wanted to grow up to have a career in technology. I started out learning things like PhotoShop, then progressed to programming in high school, and now I’m in my last semester of my bachelor’s program in computer science at UT Austin. Once I got to college, I started looking for high-quality internships to prepare myself for the professional world of software engineering.
Cybersecurity always interested me, but I didn’t really see an overlap between it and software engineering until I found the Palo Alto Networks internship program. The program was three months long, from May through August, and my work was in NetDevOps, which is the intersection of networking and development operations that involves automating network design and changes.
Since I joined the team in May, I’ve been working with Panorama, our firewall management product, to create tooling for our firewalls in order to increase the transparency of how they’re managed. I write many supporting microservices and libraries in Python to interact with services like Okta, ServiceNow, Panorama, and databases. I’ve also automated some of this work through Jenkins or CI/CD pipelines.
Being in the midst of a pandemic, there was no other choice but to do the internship remotely. Fortunately, I was still able to do everything I needed to do from my home here in Prescott, Arizona. It was definitely a challenge, particularly in the beginning. I wasn’t sure how to get the support I needed when it seemed like everyone was so busy, and I couldn’t just walk over to ask for their assistance. That first week mostly involved ramping up, setting up my computer; figuring out how the team works and who provides approvals at what stages; and learning the goals and objectives. But soon I figured out how to navigate those issues and get the help I need, and it was really rewarding to be independent and find answers on my own. I also found that I really enjoyed the flexibility of working remotely. I would say one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through my internship is how to work autonomously — to find or develop solutions on my own. I think that will serve me well in my career.
I started learning right away, and it hasn’t stopped. The interns here are constantly getting new projects to work on, and you have to learn quickly — though I find I’ve really enjoyed that fast pace. I also had previous internship experience, so I was familiar with having challenges thrown at me and having to push through my uncertainty and address them. Plus, speaking professionally, having that experience prepares me more for my career and will show future employers that I can work independently, think on my feet, and operate in a deadline-oriented environment.
Another thing I’ve learned that I have found tremendously valuable is proficiency in Python. Prior to this internship, I was self-taught but I’m very idiomatic in it now. Knowing it well and writing in it concisely is an important skill for the future.
Socializing and connecting with other interns as well as Palo Alto Networks employees has been a bit harder, obviously, because of the nature of remote work, but University Recruiting has put on some fun virtual events that have helped with that.
Even though I’ve been working on my own from home, I’ve definitely been treated as a member of the team, and my work has been meaningful and important. Just because I’m an intern doesn’t mean that I’ve been given menial tasks. In fact, a lot of my code has been used in important projects. In some companies, interns work in silos, removed from the teams, but I’ve been given assignments that were time-sensitive, where I’ve helped someone who was relying on my work to ship a big project. It was a little intimidating at first, but it was also really exciting to be contributing in a real way.
There’s a culture of empowerment here, and we’re all empowered to take on responsibilities and find solutions. Interns are encouraged to participate and complete projects with real stakes attached to them — not just meaningless, fluff jobs — and my code actually makes a difference. For me, that makes this the gold standard of internships.
And that leads me to another valuable lesson I’ve learned along the way, which is taking ownership of projects. I haven’t shied away from opportunities to learn and push myself. For example, our team uses remote contractors, and there have been times when they needed help clarifying spots in the code that were unclear or buggy, so I had to jump in and take ownership — identify places that needed improvement and take it upon myself to make those changes. In fact, I was strong enough in designing microservices that I got the opportunity to mentor another intern in that. So I’ve had a chance to both lead and follow during these three months, which doesn’t often happen during internships.
We’re exposed to people at all levels of the organization. We had an organization-wide intern fest, and we were on a call with high-level executives and the CIO, and I’ve even had some small group sessions with him. It’s really cool, and I’d never expected that from a big tech company like this.
Prior to this experience, I didn’t know what went into next-gen firewalls, and I honestly didn’t know much about what Palo Alto Networks did. But it’s been rewarding to see how all these things fit together, and I like that we’re doing something important — we’re securing companies, which is really exciting.
If I were to offer some advice to future interns, it would be this: Learn as much as you can, and don’t be afraid to ask questions, especially early on. It might seem like you’re being a nuisance, but no one expects you to know everything right away. Come in with a positive attitude, be open, and expect to learn a lot.
Crafting a Communications Career
Maggie Ballard, Corporate Communications Intern
When I applied to be an intern on the Palo Alto Networks Corporate Communications team, I never imagined I’d be reporting to work from my bedroom for the summer.
I was in the beginning of my sophomore year at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington, working on a bachelor’s degree in public relations when I started exploring internship opportunities that would provide me with some communications experience. When I came across a listing for Palo Alto Networks’ internship program, it immediately struck me as a strong program. It was well-structured in terms of the support offered to interns. I would experience a diverse range of both internal and external communications. And the access to support from fellow interns and other employees at different levels within the company as well as the company’s role in the booming cybersecurity industry were appealing. Although I had not specifically been seeking a role in cybersecurity or even in technology, I loved the idea of working alongside talented people in a wide range of subjects, from software engineering to threat intelligence or finance, that I could learn from.
Little did I know that “alongside” would have a vastly different meaning from what I’d expected. After a great interview, I was accepted into the three-month internship program at Palo Alto Networks’ headquarters in Santa Clara, California, and planned to start in May 2020. But on April 8, I got the not-so-unexpected call informing me that my internship would be conducted remotely from my home in Danville, CA. By that time, the pandemic had driven everyone to work from home, so I wasn’t surprised, but I was a little bummed that the experience would be different from what I’d imagined. I was nervous about what to expect for the next three months. This was going to be my first “big-girl” job, and I wondered whether I’d be able to get the same value out of the experience in a virtual setting as I would in the office.
Fortunately, my fears were put to rest pretty quickly. Everyone was so great about communicating that I never felt out of the loop. The communications team made a huge effort to include me. In fact, I often felt like I wasn’t an intern at all — I was a contributing full-time member of the team. People were super open to talking to me, both on my team and from other teams around the organization, so I was able to get to know a lot of people who could help me in my career path moving forward. Despite being unable to make connections in person, I was still able to get a sense of the company atmosphere.
Not only that but I was given a wide range of work opportunities in the PR realm — I would help with drafting story pitches, developing media lists, creating briefing documents for Palo Alto Networks spokespeople, talking to reporters, and even writing internal communications. So in addition to the PR-related work, I got a new sense of how journalists work, which was not only interesting but also will be useful as I move forward in my PR career. I had the opportunity to work with the executive team, coordinating their schedules for various roundtable events for the company, which provided me with great experience on the corporate side. One of my favorite tasks was working on our daily news briefings every morning. I worked each morning with one of my managers to draft an email summing up the biggest news of the day in cybersecurity or our company and send it to roughly 75 employees.
In short, the summer was nothing short of wonderful. I am grateful to have been part of such an amazing company this summer — thanks to the efforts made to keep the internship program running in the midst of a pandemic.
A Virtual Internship with Real Benefits
Jessica McQuade, University Programs Specialist
It used to be that summer interns spent their days doing filing, making copies, and following people around to watch what they did. But those days are gone. Today’s interns are looking for true, professional, resume-worthy experience and connections that give them a leg up in their careers.
Palo Alto Networks takes this goal to heart, and its University Relations (UR) team has developed a distinctive internship program that — even in the midst of a pandemic that forced all interns to work remotely — is ranked among the top 100 in the nation for 2020 for the quality of experiences given to interns, its emphasis on diversity and inclusion, and its innovative approach to remote work.
“Real” Work
The UR team creates a valuable, real-world professional experience for interns. While, of course, interns can expect several weeks of onboarding and ramping up their knowledge about their jobs, the philosophy at Palo Alto Networks is that one learns by doing. After all, an internship is supposed to prepare you for the next phase of your career, so it’s important to gain true professional experience.
“The reason I chose Palo Alto was that, during my conversation with the manager, he made it very clear that, at least on his team, he was definitely going to give the intern real work,” says Karen Jiang, a rising senior at Cornell University in New York who interned during summer 2020. “What I’ve noticed about a lot of internships is that, while the work is legitimate, it was always kind of isolated from the rest of the team, just so the intern doesn’t ‘break’ anything. But my manager made it clear, this would be real work. That meant I’d also be in the zone for breaking other people’s code or other people potentially breaking my work, which is really interesting because that’s what real developers and engineers do..”
In fact, interns frequently express pleasant surprise about the level of work experience they gain through the program. Sabrina Liu, a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and a summer 2020 software engineer intern, says, “It’s really mind-blowing that they let interns get involved with this kind of thing and take ownership of something that impacts thousands of customers.”
Keeping Diversity and Inclusion Top of Mind
Ensuring that we grow a cybersecurity workforce that includes a diverse range of backgrounds, talent, experiences, and ideas is a priority for our internship program. This is why our University Relations team actively reaches out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other diversity-focused institutions. During orientation, the team highlights Palo Alto Networks’ Employee Network Groups to encourage interns to get involved with groups they are allied with or interested in.
And as the nation turns increasing attention to the Black Lives Matter movement and a growing awareness of and interest in understanding the Black experience, we’ve created opportunities for deeper learning and connection, including spaces in which to have conversations about media representations of this subject as well as webinars with diverse speakers.
Shifting Gears
COVID-19 threw a wrench into plans for summer 2020 for the interns, many of whom had actually relocated to California to be near headquarters. Suddenly, gone were the dreams of water cooler conversations, sit-downs with managers, and happy hours with colleagues at local gathering spots.
Instead, the UR team reimagined an internship program that is both collegial and distant. Laptops were sent to each intern, along with a $200 stipend for any needed home office equipment. The onboarding plan included virtual learning paths that helped interns get up to speed quickly on Palo Alto Networks’ policies and expectations, guest speakers from various parts of the company, and an introduction to the Early in Career Employee Group, a small employee network of young professionals new to their careers who can share insights, form relationships, and ask questions, no matter how mundane.
Every intern was paired with a buddy from their team to act as a coach, motivator, and advisor. A professional development speaker series allowed interns to hear directly from professionals about tips for charting their career paths.
And just because they were working remotely doesn’t mean the interns weren’t able to have fun and socialize. The UR team got creative in planning a number of virtual events, from Bingo and 20 Questions to Zoom background competitions and much more.
As a result of these efforts, the interns say that not only did they feel included and engaged from day one, but they also warmed up quite easily to the remote work, with its lack of traffic and long commute times, and ability to carve out their own schedules.
Another unexpected benefit was how virtual interactions seemed to level the playing field for shy interns. “I’m a huge introvert,” says Karen. “I get very nervous meeting new people and talking to them — especially in the beginning of an internship, where you might need a lot of help and hand-holding. So with this experience being remote, it was actually a little easier for me to approach new people than it might have been in person. Sending a message on Slack isn’t all that different from chatting to anyone online; titles are erased. So if someone says, ‘You need to go talk to the director,’ you don’t see the word ‘director’ next to their name in Slack. It makes them seem more approachable.”
Ultimately, our goal for interns is to ensure them every opportunity to learn and grow in their chosen subject areas, but also to gain a deeper understanding of themselves as professionals and colleagues, as well as the cybersecurity industry and their place in it. We are so proud to be among the nation’s Top 100 Internship Programs, and we invite you to discover its many benefits for yourself!
Breaking the Mold
As a Principal Researcher for Palo Alto Networks’ threat intelligence division, Unit 42, I’m focused on hunting cybercriminal threats and providing timely analysis and actionable intelligence to our customers and global security community. I’m based in Amsterdam, and my team and I work in close collaboration with the international security and law enforcement community to stop threat actors, and we educate customers about potential threats and help them prioritize their resources to protect themselves.
Unlike many of my colleagues, who knew early in life that they wanted to pursue careers in cybersecurity or computer science, my background includes a variety of different, seemingly unrelated experiences. I grew up in Taiwan and was interested in international affairs and communications, so I attended college at National Chengchi University and earned my bachelor’s degree in diplomacy. After graduating, I gave myself two years to explore any career that interested me. I worked for a short time as a set designer with a filmmaking team, and then I worked as an editor for a company that published a design magazine and did public relations.
In 2008, I decided to return to school and earn a master’s degree at American University in international communication, and I was interested in the numerous opportunities available in the U.S. This was just as the global economic crisis was beginning.
During my master’s program, I actually had aspirations of becoming a film professor — film is still a huge passion of mine. However, after I completed my master’s program, the recession made it very difficult to obtain a job. The first job I could get was as a translator for a cybersecurity company. After learning the basics of the field, I realized there was a real need for cybersecurity research, and that was something I was very interested in, so I convinced my employer to train me in security research. In that role, I focused on Chinese financially motivated cybercrimes.
That experience helped me understand how to detect and diagnose threats, but I wanted to learn more about how to address that on the client side, so I took a position with Uber, managing a global fraud intelligence program that identified cyber tools and tactics used against us in the ride-sharing industry.
After doing that for a couple of years, I realized that I missed doing research, and I wanted to work with a visionary leader in the space. I was familiar with Unit 42 and Palo Alto Networks, having worked in cybersecurity, so when I got the opportunity to work here, I jumped at it.
Although it doesn’t at first seem that my education and background would fit well with my current role, I do believe that it all contributes to my work in some way. In my diplomacy and international relations studies, I learned about the relationships among nuclear powers and nation states, non-governmental organizations, public diplomacy, global economies, and technology-empowered individuals who make a drastic impact on international politics. Knowing what’s happening in international societies and their economic policies is extremely useful in providing context for and explaining certain cybercrime campaigns, such as why those crimes were executed in the ways they were and why specific victims were targeted.
Additionally, my intercultural communications training included a master’s thesis in which I reviewed a virtual group to examine how they communicated with each other. This has been helpful in analyzing the behaviors, patterns, and business models of threat actors, which enable security defenders to develop strategies based on threat actors’ weaknesses and limits.
In my experience studying intercultural communications, I’ve encountered three analogies for how people interact in their world. The first is the idea of the melting pot, in which everyone fuses together to become one. The second is the salad bowl, in which very different people and backgrounds mix together but remain intact. The third is the cookie cutter, in which individuals force themselves into an existing mold — sometimes cutting parts of yourself away to fit.
Many people think of technology as being a cookie-cutter setting — they believe there’s a mold you have to fit with a specific set of experiences, behaviors, and skills. But what I’ve found here at Palo Alto Networks is that people in tech appreciate the unique qualities each person brings to a role. They hire you with the expectation that you will enrich the role with your own personality, ideas, and perspectives, and diverse experiences are welcome. So if working in technology interests you, my advice is it to just be yourself!
Engineering the Sale
As a Corporate Systems Engineer, I work with the Sales team in our EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Asia) region to drive sales of our products. But whereas a lot of Systems Engineers are customer-facing and actually go out on sales calls, I’m primarily working from inside the company to communicate with customers by phone or email and support those sales efforts. I work on a team of six that’s based in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and we represent a mix of cultures and languages from across EMEA.
I was born and raised in Kyrgyzstan, a country that most people in the world haven’t heard of, and I speak both Russian and English. I lived in that country until I was about 24, after I earned my master’s degree in information systems. I never planned to get into sales at all. I set out to be a software developer, but I couldn’t code to save my life, so I went into systems administration, which basically meant I was in charge of everything that plugged into a socket and related to information technology.
I did that for about two years, and then I applied for what I thought was a job with Cisco but actually ended up being a graduate program: the Cisco Sales Associate Program. I was part of a group of about 120 people from nearly 50 countries — some more technical, some more into sales — and when I finished the program a year later, I found myself in a corporate IT career.
I’ve done this kind of work for about 10 years now, and the job gets more fulfilling and easier when you work with a company that has an excellent product. That’s why it has brand recognition and a lot of accolades. Working for Palo Alto Networks is kind of like selling a Tesla — all you have to decide is whether you want it in red or black. The shit just works.
I also think the company has done a nice job of hiring people who are not only good at their work but are also good people. Everyone’s helpful, and it doesn’t matter if they’re senior or junior employees — there isn’t a class system here. There aren’t a lot of big egos. I’ve seen plenty of that at my previous jobs, people being moved forward for visibility rather than capability. But at Palo Alto Networks, that kind of behavior isn’t rewarded. I think this company is both big and small enough to have a good balance, and on the technology side, they’re making the right choices as well.
But I think a lot of people start out in systems engineering with false expectations that it’s mostly about technology. That’s only half true. The other half is being comfortable working with people. That was an acquired taste in my case. I was closer to a textbook geek than a salesperson. My first meetings were clumsy, to say the least (some were a straight-up dumpster fire), and I felt like a total fraud. My advice is just to do it. Fail, and fail quickly, and don’t be too hard on yourself. Allow yourself to make mistakes, as long as you learn from them. Learning is a big part of the work we do, and it never stops, so be prepared for that. If you’re professional and understand the industry, the technology, and how its application can help customers, you can do well.
From Cyber Defense to COVID-19 Defense
One of Palo Alto Networks’ own is on the frontlines of the United States’ fight against coronavirus. Senior Director of IT Business Operations Steve Januario has been serving the nation’s military since 1997 and currently is Inspector General for the 195th Wing of the California Air National Guard, overseeing inspections for Cyber Defense, Intelligence, Space and Combat Communications. In a typical, non-pandemic year, this involves about one weekend a month of service, but there’s nothing typical about this year. When California Governor Gavin Newsom activated the Guard on March 23rd to assist in the state’s COVID-19 response, Steve said goodbye to his family (not to mention the new desk he’d purchased for working from home) and headed for the Sacramento area to bring his leadership skills to a new kind of battle.
While living in a hotel since March 24th, Steve has been performing his Palo Alto Networks duties in the morning and heading to an Army facility to work the long, daily swing shift as Battle Captain for the Guard, working with a team on an operations floor to oversee troop movement through California as part of the Guard’s four-fold COVID-19 response effort: working at area food bank facilities, providing logistical support for medical supply distribution, managing nursing stations, and operating homeless shelters.
“The Guard is doing a lot of great things,” Steve says. “We’ve packaged over 50 million meals at these food banks over the last several months, and we’ve been able to help communities in need throughout California.”
He credits the whole Palo Alto Networks IT Services team for its support while his time has been limited, especially as the unprecedented demands of getting the entire company transitioned to remote work were at their peak. He’s optimistic that California’s aggressive efforts to flatten the coronavirus curve will pay off. “People should feel assured that we have all the necessary equipment and food, and they should continue to stay home or follow safe social distancing and wear masks when going out,” he says. “This is something we’re taking very seriously… hopefully, we’ll start to see this taper off soon.”
Trailblazing
Rohan Kar, Product Management Academy
My Journey to Product Management
As a 90s kid in India, I vividly remember life pre-Internet, when Amazon was just a river, Google search didn’t exist, and you needed an actual paper map to travel. Contrasting that with the vast improvements in my life that came after, started a lifelong passion for technology as a catalyst for positive change in the world.
So when it came to deciding a career path, I wanted to get as much exposure as I could into building great technology products. When you simplify it, three things determine a successful product: what you build, how you build it, and how it’s adopted. Product management is the only role that’s deeply embedded in all three areas.
I was naturally inclined to major in computer science and engineering for my undergrad. While I was strong in software development, I wanted to develop myself into a more well-rounded technologist. So I moved to the U.S. to pursue a Master of Information Management and Systems (MIMS) at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information. Berkeley provided an interdisciplinary approach to understanding the societal impact of my decisions on how technology is designed, built, and used.
As my mentor AJ likes to say, product management is both art and science. The art is all about situational leadership, influence, and the ability to drive outcomes despite imperfect conditions. Science is the technical knowledge and analytical skills you bring from areas within product development, like UX research, systems design, and data science, as well as areas outside product development like sociology, economics, and operations. PMs don’t necessarily make all the decisions — they just ensure the right ones get made. One’s ability to make better product decisions is ultimately limited by the scope of understanding of your problem space. So I think the more perspectives you bring into product management, the more you get out of it.
It was really important to me to be a part of a company that does well and also does good. I had always admired Palo Alto Networks as one that was working on the cutting edge and also making a difference in the world by keeping everyone digitally safer. When I encountered the PMA job listing on Berkeley’s internal careers site, I was immediately excited and applied right away. That’s how it all started!
About the PMA
The Product Management Academy is a two-year, rotational PM program for new grads. The rotations provide breadth and depth of experiences and give exposure to different customer challenges we solve as a company. It also introduces you to the unique problem-solver style of product management here at Palo Alto Networks. It fosters a high degree of analytical and product rigor by virtue of being on high-impact projects where you will be constantly challenged to deliver different outcomes while learning by doing.
Each year, the PMA welcomes a small class of six to eight PMs. The close community aspect is one of the most important things to me about it because we all support and learn from each other. Not only that, but the mentorship I’ve received from product leaders throughout Palo Alto Networks has been tremendous, and it was an important part of why I chose the program.
There’s really no prescribed path to a successful product management career. Everyone creates their own through their unique backgrounds and experiences. In a way, we’re all trailblazers! If you’ve realized product management is the right role for you, then I think the PMA is a fantastic way to start. We move very quickly and at a high level, so you have to be ready to hit the ground running. It will accelerate your growth and allow you to take the next step towards becoming a product leader.
In my first rotation, I was placed on one of our most successful products: WildFire. I’ve enjoyed the full spectrum of opportunities working across the company to strategize key areas for business growth, writing specs for new features, defining key performance indicators (KPIs) for the next stage of my product, and helping deliver a platform to general availability (GA). When I took the job as Palo Alto Networks’ first PM in the PMA, I couldn’t have imagined the professional fulfillment I would achieve just in this past year alone.
Working at Palo Alto Networks
A huge draw for me joining Palo Alto Networks was the scale at which our products affect customers. As the world’s leading cybersecurity company, we help protect over 70,000 organizations, who then serve millions of people like us around the world. We are customers of our customers. By protecting them from adversaries, we, in turn, protect our own digital way of life. The benefits of working for an industry-defining company where you can grow and try new things is invaluable. It’s still early days for us so I’m constantly excited about what we do next.