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.
Improving the Customer Experience
I am a technology professional with over 20 years’ experience in the networking industry with the last two spent at Palo Alto Networks. In my current role at Palo Alto Networks, I am part of the APAC (Asia-Pacific) Global Customer Success (GCS) management team that oversees support operations and ensures that we have a satisfied customer base in APAC.
During my high school years, I was fairly clear that I would choose a career in either technology or administration. Back then, computer programming was just beginning to become a fad, and coding courses were newly introduced into the school curriculum. I used to enjoy having the ability to solve problems in a logical manner in my programming classes. One thing led to another, and I wound up pursuing my bachelor’s degree in engineering, followed by a career in computer networking.
Career Transition
I spent most of my career in quality assurance and management roles, within product engineering organizations. I have enjoyed being part of new product initiatives (NPI) and projects that help to deliver tangible products to the market.
However, over the last few years, being in Singapore, I realized that I needed to be closer to the customer to get a real taste of the business. This made me pursue a Master of Business Administration degree, simultaneously scouting for opportunities that were different from what I had been doing before. The Tech Support role at Palo Alto Networks seemed ideal to help put me in close contact with the customer and also to get an understanding of business drivers in the industry.
Fast-paced — that’s the best way to describe Tech Support. Customers expect problems to be solved pronto, and this demands urgent action. I have huge respect for my colleagues who continually take calls from customers — customers whose emotions are somewhere within the spectrum of confused, desperate, frustrated, or angry. Members of Technical Support have to maintain their own composure, calm down the situation, and then go about troubleshooting technical problems. It requires a demanding combination of excellent technical and communication skills.
This is where work-life balance is important. When work takes up so much of our time and mindspace, it is hard to not call it an integral part of our lives. On an average day, most of us spend more than 70% of our waking hours at work. This means that work has to be taken as part of life and not contrary to it. To keep an inner balance, I try to follow a routine that involves reserving early morning hours for yoga and meditation. I also squeeze in a walk or work out after work, whenever I can. Outside of spending time with my family, I have a variety of interests like playing games, reading, and contributing to certain social causes. I try to be genuinely present at work during working hours and with family during off-work hours, though I must admit that there are unavoidable encroachments into both.
Women in Tech Support
As a professional, I hardly ever identify myself with being a female worker – rather the focus is always on the task at hand. However, it is no secret that there are fewer women than men in tech support professions. Knowledge-centric professions are great levellers for women in the workforce, as they remove the requirement for physical prowess and technical support roles should be no different. Unfortunately, job requirements for technical support roles usually detail a need for shift timing and weekend work. This may be a deterrent for women who are technology savvy but unable to commit to schedules that are outside of traditional working hours. Conscious action by companies such as ours, with carefully worded job descriptions and supportive policies for employers, can help us have more smart women take up this role.
Due to the obvious competitive advantage that a diverse workforce brings, there is conscious effort around the world, to have greater participation from the female workforce in all levels of the organization. In this environment, the female professionals should not miss out on opportunities due to lack of self-confidence or initiative. Research has shown that the female employee is more likely to doubt herself and her contributions as compared to her male counterpart. As female leaders, we need to be introspective and consciously rise above these self-defeating doubts and not trivialize our value. The entire leadership team, irrespective of gender, plays a vital role in supporting this. Looking forward to seeing great female talent and leadership blossoming in our organization!
On the Big Data Frontier
Abhishek Joshi, Director of Data Engineering – Cortex
As the director of engineering on Palo Alto Networks’ Cortex Data Lake, I oversee multiple teams that collect and analyze enterprises’ security data to identify and block potential threats through our Cortex Apps. Our primary function is ingestion, which is the heart and soul of any Big Data platform. This team is where the magic happens. From scaling to billions of logs per day to making sure that we are available and successfully running in multiple geographies around the world and are able to process data from disparate sources — including IoT devices, firewalls, and any other sensors deployed — this is the team that makes it happen. We make sense of all that security and threat data to give meaningful insights to our end customers.
Many people who are familiar with the name Palo Alto Networks assume that we’re in the networking space, or they know that the company started in firewalls, so they think of us as purely a firewall company. But in truth, we’re on the bleeding edge of the data world, working on the latest and greatest technologies that you can find within computer science. From a technology perspective, this is as exciting as it gets!
My Path to Palo Alto
I grew up in India and earned an undergraduate degree in computer science at the University of Mumbai, then I relocated to the United States to complete my master’s in computer science at North Carolina State University. I worked in a number of software engineering roles and wrote quite a lot of code for the cloud portion of the industry, eventually rising through the ranks to earn management roles.
A former coworker approached me about working for Palo Alto Networks. He was working here and was really enthusiastic about the company and the leadership, and it was clear to me that it was the right fit for me. Breaking ground and pursuing a vision was in its DNA. They were doing things no one else was doing.
When I first joined this team last year, we were working around the clock to get a first version of our product out. We had made some promises in terms of the numbers we were planning to hit, and we were a bit behind the 8-ball. A bunch of us were in the “war room,” just burning the midnight oil, literally making things happen. Fast-forward to today, and we have a V1 product that has been on the market for months and has scaled to roughly 1.5 million logs per second, and now we’re excited to see that hard work come to fruition and know that what we do really matters. As a leader, I think that’s the most exciting part: to see something we built together and know that it actually works and makes a difference.
Playing on Our Team
From a people-management perspective, I make it a point to hire people who are smart and intelligent, yet humble. Humility actually plays a big role with respect to the team I run because I want to ensure that everyone is getting to learn and grow every single day.
Life at Palo Alto Networks is very focused and outcome-driven. We’ve set clear, measurable goals, and we’re not afraid to push boundaries. The goals are not unreasonable, and as a member of the team, you get a chance to participate in establishing them, but once they’re set, you are the master of your own destiny. So we want people who want to come in and make an impact within a reasonable amount of time and who aren’t afraid to try something new and even risk failure in that process. This is not a legacy product that we’re simply maintaining — we’re building it from the ground up. We’re blazing new trails. And we get to do it with a technology stack that is, bar none, the most comprehensive and exciting in the industry. So for someone who’s starting out in their career, I can’t think of a better opportunity.
As a New Hire at Palo Alto Networks
“In my first month of onboarding at Palo Alto Networks, I can truly feel the strong bonding and cohesion between each of us. As a team we share our knowledge and resources to enable and help others to achieve different goals, inside and outside of work, with no consideration of our genders, cultures, and backgrounds.”
Transitioning from the travel industry to the tech world made me nervous at first. I had a hospitality background before joining Palo Alto Networks, and I always wanted to step out of my comfort zone to achieve something big and meaningful. My role as a Business Development Representative is to drive opportunities by following up with the marketing leads and discovering new potential customers for Palo Alto Networks.
While in my first month of onboarding at Palo Alto Networks, our daily operations were affected by the coronavirus. However, it did not stop us from being a cohesive team; in the HK office, we helped each other in sourcing hygiene products and sharing our limited resources with others. I can truly feel the strong bonding and cohesion between each of us in HK. As a team we share our knowledge, and resources to enable and help others to achieve different goals, inside and outside of work, with no consideration of our genders, cultures, and backgrounds. Besides the HK team, I also work with the regional Inside Sales team, and they have shared their experience and insights with me and supported me through onboarding. With all the support and encouragement, I have adapted to the new environment smoothly.
I am lucky to be working with my teammates, who are open-minded and mutually respectful, and I believe we can empower each other to make a better workplace. I am excited to be around the great people and great minds at Palo Alto Networks.
What Inclusion and Diversity Means To Me
International Women’s Day, is more than one day. For me, inclusion is an opportunity to recognise and celebrate not only women’s contributions and achievements in society, but also the collaboration among all of us in the company to make positive change, reach ambitious goals, and build a better world together. It’s also a great opportunity for us to appreciate how much we have accomplished and reflect on how much we still need to focus on more to make a more inclusive society.
Never limit yourself because of your gender. One’s ability should not be restricted by any prejudices. We improve and excel by understanding our capabilities and seeing the true value of ourselves.
Palo Alto Networks is the leader in cybersecurity not just because we are good at what we do, but also because we believe that an equal world is an enabled world.
In the Customers’ Corner
In my role as a Consulting Engineer with the Security Operations, or SecOps, team, I work with the sales account teams in the field. The SecOps team consults with customers about their security programs and how we can help them achieve better security outcomes. We also help account teams extend the relationships from the network security team into the Security Operations Center, or SOC. This helps drive the need to consolidate tools and adopt more of the Palo Alto Networks platform and best practices.
This is unlike any other team I’ve worked within this industry. We’re security people and are focused on security, but we’re more driven by successful customer outcomes and how we can apply our technologies. We’re not looking for ways to shovel tons of our products at them — instead, we’re looking for ways to make them more successful and confident in using our products, protecting their systems.
My team also educates and engages with the Systems Engineers and partners in the field on the various SOC use cases and trending security topics that are top of mind to our customers. What I enjoy about the role is that my day to day is rather dynamic. Every customer interaction is unique, and each one provides insights on how security concerns can vary based on industry. We are truly working to partner with customers as technical advisors.
Although many who work in cybersecurity come from a variety of backgrounds, I actually studied systems engineering in college and began my career in network security. In previous roles with other companies, I worked to help safeguard data for the financial services and insurance sector, and that’s where I first encountered Palo Alto Networks’ products. But more than the quality of the technology, what I was hearing increasingly from competitors and colleagues was about its great company culture. That gave me the confidence to take the leap and pursue a role with the company.
Family Feeling
Now that I’ve been with Palo Alto Networks for over three years, I can see what those people were talking about. If I had to pick one word that describes the company culture, I’d pick “family.” The family feeling here is what sets this company apart. Even though I work remotely, I work on a small team of just four consulting engineers, so we’re an intimate, close-knit group. I knew them all before coming to work here, and we already had a great rapport. I have the flexibility to work on my own as well as with the team in our offices when I need that camaraderie and exchange of ideas, so it’s the best of both worlds.
I really enjoy the fact that people in this company, at all levels, are encouraged to engage in dialogue and offer feedback, and that the managers have an open-door policy. But especially within my team, there’s a real openness and a sense of moral support. If they feel I’m struggling or if I need help, they have my back. All I have to do is show up and raise my hand; there are no dumb questions. Being that we’re a team of technical engineers, we’re the throats you choke when things go bad, so having people support you — whether it’s management, your peers, or the president of the company — show up at your meetings, try to kick down doors for you, and celebrate your successes, that is so important, and it’s what I love about working here.
That company culture is a big part of coming to work here too. You need to be someone who has the right aptitude and attitude, to learn and challenge yourself and be receptive to feedback. That’s part of why the interview and hiring process can be long; the company has really grown in the last year, with new acquisitions and larger staffs, but they’ve still successfully maintained that family-oriented feeling, so it’s important to be patient during that process because it’s part of what makes this company special, and it has paid off.
And it’s also important to know that this company values diversity. The leaders here recognize that the more people we include, the more cultures and backgrounds we have offering perspectives, and the stronger and more approachable we make the security community. It used to be that cybersecurity was viewed as a man’s world, but I’ve seen that changing, so my advice is just to show up. Ask questions. Stay curious. There is opportunity in this industry if you’re willing to work hard for it.
Onboarding is Key to the Remote Worker Experience
As Global Onboarding Manager for a cybersecurity company, I find myself in a unique position. I know we’re in a period of historic change where the unemployment rate is at an all-time high, which shifted seemingly overnight, where just a few months ago, we were in the opposite situation. As we navigate the current unprecedented global situation, with all of the changes and outside stressors that all employees are feeling, employee engagement is even more critical than it’s ever been before. However, no matter how many people (or how few) are being hired, onboarding is still a critical piece in the Employee Engagement plan. I’ve seen the value of a good onboarding experience firsthand. In fact, a 2017 report says that a company that invests time in a quality onboarding process not only is 25% more likely to retain its workers, but also will see an 11% increase in performance. And nearly 1 in 10 people have left a company due to poor onboarding experiences.
Looking back over the past few years, I’ve also witnessed Palo Alto Networks grow exponentially, in both our product offerings and our number of employees. However,as we began taking a closer look at attrition and engagement rates, it became clear to us that we were missing the mark with some of our onboarding efforts. The processes we’d followed when the company was a small startup no longer suited a company with our increased size and scope, and they didn’t necessarily address our large remote workforce as effectively as they could have. So we’ve recently initiated a number of changes to the onboarding process for remote employees. This has proved exceptionally important during today’s current WFH (work from home) situation for many employees around the world.
Welcome Day
One of many elements of our onboarding that we redesigned is our initial start day/start week experience for employees, which affects not only those who work at headquarters, but also remote employees. (Note: we mention start date and not “Day One” because for us, Day One is the day you sign your offer; that’s when your onboarding begins!) By your first day, if you’re an employee in the Americas (Canada, the US or Latin America) who is working remotely, you will have already been invited to participate in Pre-Boarding (a virtual learning path you received after you signed your offer) and been sent an invitation to “Virtual Welcome Day”. Using Zoom conferencing and G Suite collaboration tools, you’ll take part in an interactive, live, facilitated session that was specifically designed to deeply engage remote workers. In this interactive environment, you’ll connect and participate with people of all backgrounds from different countries , and you’ll learn about our company, our values, our platform, and our resources. Feedback from the last two quarters of participants in this new program has been overwhelmingly positive — our program earned an NPS (net promoter score) of 96 — that’s something we’re very proud of.
The First Three Months
Our efforts to engage remote employees don’t stop after Virtual Welcome Day. One of the takeaways at the end of the session is the introduction to “Level Up,” our digital learning platform, which features a 90-day on-demand onboarding path. By using this approach, our new hires get on-demand materials in a way that’s more easily digestible and retained, presented when they’re ready for it, and ensuring they’re set up with the tools they need to become happy, engaged, long-term employees.
We also connect with our employees multiple times within their first three months — checking in, sharing resources, and getting their feedback. A new job is a big life change, and it can be hard to recall everything you’ve learned on your first day, so we make this information continuously accessible. By getting their perspectives, we ensure a dynamic program that meets their needs.
The massive growth of the cybersecurity industry means that we’re continuing to hire new employees. The workforce is evolving, and if we’re going to remain successful, our onboarding efforts must constantly evolve with it. I’m proud of the changes we’ve made so far and look forward to finding new opportunities to help all employees to stay meaningfully connected to Palo Alto Networks.