Understanding Faith Without Fear
By Carl Borsody, Vice President of Sales – Americas Majors and Globals
When companies talk about wanting their employees to feel safe bringing their “whole selves” to work, it’s important to realize that a person’s whole self may be inextricably linked with their faith.
While people of all religions have confronted prejudice and even demonization throughout history, those who practice the Islamic faith have arguably faced the most misrepresentation and discrimination in modern times. Though it is the second-largest religion in the world (behind Christianity), Islam is frequently misunderstood, particularly in the West. The impression of Muslims as extremists to be feared is, unfortunately, pervasive. And for an organization such as Palo Alto Networks, a global organization committed to inclusiveness for its 9,000+ employees, one important way to help combat such misunderstandings is to offer a safe space in which to discuss concerns, find connections, and build bridges instead of walls. That’s why Salam, the Muslim Employee Network, was established.
It may seem odd that I, a middle-aged, white American man, would be asked to assume the role of executive sponsor for this group. When I was offered the role just a few months ago, I certainly asked whether I was the right person for the job. But the role of executive sponsor — the person who provides executive-level support, advocacy, and guidance to an Employee Network Group (ENG) — means providing a much-needed outside perspective that can be valuable. Part of an ENG’s charter is to address negative stereotypes, so someone in my shoes can play an important role in heading those off. Plus, if cross-cultural understanding is the goal, a great place to start is with an executive sponsor who is open to learning more and can act as an advocate and facilitator of important discussions and activities.
With an active membership of roughly 180 employees, Salam is the only faith-based ENG at Palo Alto Networks. It may surprise you to learn that while our members live around the globe, particularly in the Middle East, a large percentage of them were born and now reside in the U.S., and about 60% of them identify as female. Discussions among members frequently revolve around the Islamaphobia and racism directed at them, from both other Muslims and non-Muslims alike. Many have indicated a desire to break down the mystery of Islam, to shed light on the various differences that exist between them and the extremists they’re often associated with. There seems to be a real sense of fear and confusion about their faith, which often leads to people presuming they are bad people. Education is the only way to move past such misconceptions. It’s appropriate, then, that salam, an Arabic word meaning peace, was selected as the name for the ENG.
Though the pandemic has affected the group’s ability to bring people together for events or discussions, we are increasingly finding ways to connect virtually. Though I’m still learning about my new role as executive sponsor and how I can best serve, I am happy to be someone to bounce ideas off, to raise important questions, and to give structure and consistency to the group from an executive level.
Though I often saw flyers in our company elevators promoting various ENG activities (before the pandemic sent us all home to work), and though I knew Palo Alto Networks was committed to increasing the diversity of its workforce and creating an atmosphere of inclusiveness, I didn’t truly understand the value of ENGs before taking on the role of executive sponsor. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. I’ve truly enjoyed getting to know the power of these groups and seeing the influence they can have on the company as a whole. In fact, in the last six months alone, the company has received roughly 1,800 referrals for potential employees from ENGs across the company, which will significantly bolster our diversity efforts.
Overall, serving as executive sponsor for Salam not only provides me with greater understanding of and exposure to other cultures, but it will help me to see my team with new eyes, to think more about how diversity can improve our business. Of course, though Palo Alto Networks is making huge strides toward being a robustly diverse company, it — like many other businesses — has a long way to go. The more voices and perspectives there are in the room, the better our decisions will be. ENGs are a first step in making sure everyone’s voice can be heard.
Research repeatedly shows that ENGs benefit both employees and employers, boosting employee engagement and satisfaction, generating greater opportunities for professional development, increasing employee retention, and improving recruitment efforts. The leaders at Palo Alto Networks understand that ENGs are good for business. If you’re an employer, consider how to make ENGs a part of your community, and continue to be vocal about their value for everyone on your team.
If you’re an employee, I encourage you to seek out an ENG that interests you, whether you’re technically part of that affinity group or not — the learning, connection, and personal growth that often take place are sure to be valuable.
A Seat at the Table
By Aneesha More, Senior Customer Success Engineer, Cortex
I grew up in Mumbai with the goal of studying engineering and becoming a hardware designer. I was fortunate to earn a bachelor’s degree in electronics and telecommunications in India — an opportunity that few women in India get to experience. In 2017, I moved to the United States to earn my master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University’s Silicon Valley campus. Upon graduation, I was ready to put my skills to test in the industry. I soon realized that getting a job wasn’t going to be that easy.
I was told by many that companies are more likely to hire if you are referred by an employee. I reached out to a friend who was working at an exciting cybersecurity company named Demisto and asked if he knew of any open positions. He suggested that I come to interview there. I was a little uncertain about entering an industry that I had little experience in. But I did my research and was fascinated by this product. I learned that in only three short years, Demisto had made huge strides in the area of cybersecurity automation.
During my interview, I could see that they were extremely talented people, and I could also hear the passion in their voices. This made me even more excited. As I cleared the different stages of the interview process and was offered the job, I was thrilled about working with this amazing team on this dynamic product. I feel extremely grateful that my friend referred me to this role, and I have never regretted for one moment that I didn’t stick to electrical engineering.
Inclusive Culture
I was hired in August 2018, and seven months later, Demisto was acquired by Palo Alto Networks. I was apprehensive at first. After all, I had just joined Demisto, a company I loved, and I was worried about being able to keep my job, whether my team would remain intact, and whether the product would change. But, very soon, I realized that my current team and managers would remain the same, yet with Palo Alto Networks, we had a much larger presence and endless potential, so this incredible, small team now had an opportunity to shine on a much larger scale.
Not only that, but the workplace culture was wonderful. The company had a true commitment to inclusion and diversity. As an early-in-career woman of color in tech, I appreciated the efforts being made to increase diversity and to discuss a lot of the issues people like me faced each day, which was extremely empowering. I could see how much the company’s leaders cared about their employees.
For a while, I was the only female engineer on the Cortex XSOAR (Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response) team. But even though the number of females has slightly grown, I definitely have, in the beginning of my career, been the only woman in the room during meetings and conferences, and I have experienced exclusion — albeit unintentional — which was difficult to navigate at first. But as I gained confidence in my work and the more I started talking, the more comfortable I felt asking questions. I think a lot of women worry about asking questions, but I felt like it was my moral responsibility to ask so that others would feel comfortable doing so as well. That was when I started making a place for myself. In my mind, if I’m asking a question worth answering, I have a presence on the team. I’m not fading into the background. I have a voice.
As I became part of Palo Alto Networks, I continued that practice. I was fortunate to have a lot of amazing mentors on the team (who happened to be men) who were extremely helpful and encouraging, and who happily answered those questions and taught me everything I know today. They made a real effort toward being inclusive, which is representative of how this company operates. In fact, my current manager invited me to be part of the hiring team, which I saw as a deliberate effort on his part to show that he cares about diversity on the team — having a woman engineer be a part of the interview process tells the candidate how we want our team to look, and that to me is very special.
Though I don’t think anyone in tech sets out to exclude women, I think the gender gap happens early on, when recruiters are reaching out to new job candidates. Companies seek referrals from current employees they trust to fill open positions. So if there’s a majority of men, they will probably mostly know other men to refer, so the cycle continues. It’s hard for women to make a dent in that network. That’s why I think it’s so important for women to network with each other more than they do — and why we need more of us to share stories about our experiences and show what’s possible.
Nearly 50% of the world’s power is held by women, so without women in cybersecurity, think of the potential we’re missing! Women are multitaskers, with a temperament that enables us to navigate difficult situations calmly and respectfully, and often we can engage one on one with customers in a different, more empathetic way. In a role such as mine, which involves dealing with customers, those talents are crucial. Yet women often lack the confidence to apply for these roles.
In fact, what I’ve seen is that if a job posting lists 10 qualifications, men who may not meet all 10 requirements are still more likely to apply anyway than women are. But you can’t get hired for a job you don’t apply for! So I encourage more women to seek out these roles and to be confident in their abilities. Believe in the value you bring to the workplace — this is a company that I know from personal experience will welcome it.
**The Cortex Customer Success team is looking to bring in more diverse talent. Please check out our careers page for remote opportunities as Customer Success Manager, Customer Success Engineer, and Customer Success Architect roles. If you have a passion for technology and working with customers on cutting-edge products, we want to talk to you! We are hiring Cyber Ninjas all across the United States.**
A Company With Heart
By Bill J. Pruitt, Senior Product Manager, Prisma (CloudGenix) SD-WAN
Growing up, I was like many boys my age — I played sports with my friends and had dreams of someday joining the military. But at age 13, after experiencing health problems, I saw a doctor who diagnosed me with a heart condition that brought my ability to play sports and my military dreams to an abrupt end.
Throughout my adolescence and early adulthood, I was hospitalized for my condition several times. As I grew up and started thinking about what career I wanted to pursue, I felt more and more drawn to information technology (IT). I enrolled in college at McKendree University in Lebanon, Illinois, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in IT management, becoming the first person in my family to earn a bachelor’s degree.
I was fortunate to work for several major international companies in technology architecture and systems engineering. As my career was moving to the next level, with my CCIE certification from Cisco Systems, my health was also moving to the next level. As I was completing my CCIE program, attending a lab exam in January 2012, my heart again went into arrhythmia. This resulted in EMS arriving on the scene to administer emergency medication to restart my heart with the proper rhythm — quite embarrassing and disruptive.
Despite my condition, the following month, I passed the lab exam and earned my certification. Two months later, after a correct diagnosis, I underwent surgery to correct my lifelong heart condition.
That surgery gave me a new lease on life, enabling me to get back to doing physical activities that I’d always loved but had been unable to do. I started running again, eventually completing a marathon in 2016 and, after hundreds of hours of preparation, an ultra-marathon in 2020. These days, I still run for enjoyment, along with boating with my family, swimming, biking, hiking, and even CrossFit!
In 2016, after the July shooting of a group of police officers in Dallas, in which five officers were killed and nine injured, I was moved to support the community and help put a positive face on law enforcement. I volunteered as a deputy sheriff, put in 300 hours of training, and became part of several community and safety programs.
Continuing to strive for further success in my career, I accepted a position in systems engineering with a scrappy SD-WAN startup called CloudGenix in early 2017. It was a company I grew to love, with a workplace culture that celebrated autonomy, collaboration, and hustle. When Palo Alto Networks acquired CloudGenix in April 2020, I was elated at the possibilities but also concerned that the culture and work I’d so enjoyed would change, which occasionally happens in acquisitions.
Fortunately, my worries were unfounded. Not only were those of us from CloudGenix empowered to continue working in the entrepreneurial style that we had come to love, but the culture here is so supportive and collaborative that we felt part of the team right away. Hierarchies and job titles don’t matter here as much as pitching in and doing what needs to be done — no one is “above” any task, and if something needs to be done, everyone jumps in to get it done, whether it’s part of their “job description” or not.
Throughout my life, I have learned the importance of maintaining a balance of faith, family, fortune, and fitness. I believe deeply in self-improvement, and I make it a point to listen to podcasts and audiobooks for inspiration so that I can develop all these areas of my life.
What I appreciate about Palo Alto Networks is that it supports that balance. The company’s leaders believe in personal and professional development, a work-life balance, and emphasizing physical and emotional wellbeing, and it offers plenty of resources to employees to help us maintain these things. Even though I’ve only technically been part of Palo Alto Networks for about a year, I have seen that it’s a company with heart, and I’m happy to be here!
The Only Woman in the Room
Usa Sangchantrarin, Systems Engineer GSI, JAPAC
I started my journey with Palo Alto Networks in October 2020 as a GSI Systems Engineer supporting the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region. My main responsibility is to work with our GSI partners and customers to accelerate their security transformation through Palo Alto Networks’ comprehensive portfolio of technologies and expertise. It’s my pleasure to join one of the fastest growing and most innovative cybersecurity companies in the world.
My Cybersecurity Journey
Two decades in cybersecurity – a male-dominated industry — has rewarded me with invaluable personal and professional experiences in life, from being the only female in a boardroom with military generals to having a husband working for a cybersecurity competitor. I grew up in a family that upheld a typical Asian culture and beliefs. I still remember the day when I gave my mom a shock by saying that I wanted to be an engineer. She replied, “That’s a man’s job. Why would you want to do that?” She then tried to persuade me to become a lawyer or a doctor instead. Clearly, that was a failed attempt.
Now that I am an adult professional, I am in a cybersecurity family. My husband and I both work in the cybersecurity space. In fact, there was an interesting time when we were competitors bidding for the same project. That’s when we introduced a ground rule at home to completely avoid talking about work. I can’t imagine how we would manage such a situation during Covid-19 when we are both working from home. Trying to manage the same deal without leaking information while in the same house would definitely have interesting implications for arranging conference calls, remote discussions, etc.
For the past two decades in this field, I have been exploring the many aspects of cybersecurity, from being a network security engineer to a cybersecurity consultant, to a technology risk-management professional, to, now, a security architect. It’s true that in almost every engineering team I have been part of, I have been either the only woman or just one of two women. This lack of gender diversity becomes really apparent when I attend large-scale cybersecurity events where men make up the majority of attendees.
As I mentioned earlier, being a woman in tech is rewarding personally and professionally. For the past 10 years, my job has required me to travel more than 50 percent of my time. Travelling has been an eye opener for me. I have gotten to meet with many people from diverse industries and backgrounds, especially in the past five years. My account manager and I were assigned to grow the business and partner ecosystem in emerging countries such as Myanmar, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Vietnam. There were multiple interesting situations in which I found myself.
One of the most memorable of these situations was when I was the only female in a war room with my customers — a group of security experts from the Ministry of Defence. Everyone in the war room was in their uniform discussing a security incident. My role in that meeting was to become a trusted advisor and help them handle the incident and escalation to the forensic investigation team (if required). In such situations, it’s important to establish your leadership presence in the room and get your voice heard. We hear women say that they feel less effective in meetings than they do in other professional situations. Others say that their voices are ignored or drowned out.
So what can we do? We can’t afford to sit back and wait for someone to ask for our opinions. Instead, we need to empower ourselves and learn strategies and techniques to make ourselves heard. One useful trick is to overcome your lifetime of negative inner talk and use a confident tone to communicate in a short and precise manner. Put your main point up front and follow it with precise supporting details. Women tend to use too many words in an attempt to soften what we are saying or avoid coming across as aggressive. This tends to distract your audience from the main message. And this makes you less effective in appearing as the subject-matter expert who can provide them with a confident action plan to resolve a problem.
In my opinion, cybersecurity is an amazing field for women. There are so many opportunities, and the careers are so diverse. Women are definitely an asset to the industry, and I would strongly encourage women to seek out the many career opportunities in the field.
WiCyS Career Fair Aims to Draw More Women to Cybersecurity
A lot has been said about the global shortage of cybersecurity workers. Today, around the world, there are roughly 4 million cybersecurity jobs sitting unfilled. Compounding this shortage is the wide gender gap across cybersecurity roles. Though great progress has been made in the last several years to bring more women to the cybersecurity table, women still only comprise one-quarter of the industry’s workforce. To address this shortage, it’s essential that we fill the gender gap.
Much has been written about the important role diversity plays in a productive workforce that is sensitive to the many varied needs of the industry. Women bring critical perspectives and experiences that are good for any business, including ours: Threat actors and their victims come from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives, so our workforce must be just as diverse so that we’re equipped to handle that.
This is why Women in Cybersecurity, or WiCyS, was founded six years ago — to address this gender gap by facilitating connections between cybersecurity companies and potential job candidates, as well as to support professional development and advancement for women in the industry. As a member of the WiCyS Board of Directors and information security professional with Palo Alto Networks, the organization’s founding sponsor, I was privileged to help organize and participate, along with our University Recruiting team, in one of WiCyS’ many important annual activities: the Fall Virtual Career Fair, which took place Sept. 9, 2020.
Though our in-person conference is held each spring and has proven a nice venue for networking and professional development, there was a need for an event that could connect companies with intern candidates during the fall when college students are seeking internship opportunities. In response, WiCyS established its Fall Virtual Career Fair in 2019.
The event gives companies like ours the opportunity to meet with women of all ages and backgrounds to share insights into our work and our needs. We can answer questions about our day-to-day responsibilities, give practical advice about career growth, and meet potential candidates for open positions at our company. Meanwhile, candidates can ask questions about expectations and form professional relationships.
A New Way to Network
Prior to this virtual event, recruiters will have met with interested candidates and reviewed their qualifications in previously submitted resumes or through information given to WiCyS. This allows us to more effectively refer candidates to hiring managers and achieve a more specific, in-depth level of conversation. Though other such fairs exist for women in tech, this is the only event specifically designed for cybersecurity, making it extremely valuable.
Utilizing the vFairs virtual events platform, each sponsor company is assigned a “booth,” which is basically a chatroom, that enables interested candidates to approach them, explore job and internship opportunities, and meet with recruiters and company representatives to ask questions and express their interest in positions. Conversations are chat-based, though participants have the option to request a call from a representative to talk further or direct message particular members of employers’ teams. Employers have access to candidates’ profiles and resumes, so they can be very targeted in their advice, recruitment approach, or referrals. Similar to an application like Slack, the vFairs platform allows for conversations in real-time with multiple people, providing for excellent reach.
In the end, we discovered that although some were students, the majority of participants were actually professionals who were either looking to transition into cybersecurity as a new career path or had perhaps taken a break from their careers and were looking to return to the workforce. Many of them had considerable professional experience who were driven and talented but just needed a little guidance. Several expressed strong interest in cybersecurity and were looking for advice on training or experiences that could help. In the end, we formed connections with a number of strong candidates and, we hope, increased candidates’ interest in this field.
There’s still much speculation about why the cybersecurity workforce shortage exists or how best to grow the pipeline of talented workers of all genders, cultures, and backgrounds. Many factors are at play, including the availability of workplace-relevant training programs, lack of awareness, and more. But events such as the WiCyS Fall Virtual Career Fair can help by bringing employers and future employees together in a targeted, effective way. To learn more, visit WiCyS.org.
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!
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.
Enjoy the Ride
As a Customer Success Engineer for Palo Alto Networks’ Prisma Cloud, I wear three hats, which I wear interchangeably each day: One is as my customers’ trusted advisor providing guidance about how we can best address their needs with our products. One is as a trainer for other employees within the company as well as for new customers as they onboard with our products. And the third is one that puts me in a support role for existing customers so they can overcome tech challenges. Every customer is in a different stage with our products, so I’m continuously changing my “hats” each day, which makes every day interesting — there’s never a dull moment, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Although I have only been with the company a little over a year, it feels like I’ve been here for years, and I mean that in the best way possible — the learning I have achieved and expertise I’ve been able to gain in my short time are incredible.
Our Global Customer Success department is what we call a speedboat — this means we’re a self-contained unit that is empowered to be agile and move quickly ahead. In this analogy, there’s constant wind coming at us and we need to speed ahead to lead the way, deflect hazards in our path, and deliver results.
But for me, I think of working in GCS as being like a roller coaster. Personally, I’m scared of roller coasters. I’m always afraid I’m going to fall off. But every year on my birthday, I go to a theme park and ride one, just to prove to myself that I can do it. Every year, I feel that anxiety while I wait in the queue to get on the ride, and I wonder why I’m doing this to myself. The waiting is stressful. But then after I ride, I’m exhilarated and glad that I did it, and I’m ready to ride it again. In some ways, this is like my work. In Customer Success, we have a lot of customer meetings to get through each day to make sure they’re getting the right and expected value from our products. The anticipation of what challenges they’ll bring can be scary sometimes — you don’t know what you’re going to get, and sometimes you’ll encounter a challenge you’ve never faced. It can be overwhelming. But then when I speak to my customers and earn their trust, then watch their progress with the products, it’s so exhilarating and rewarding. Then I think, “I’m ready to do that again!”
On our team, Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and Customer Success Engineers (CSEs) work closely together — the CSMs hand more of the account management and customer service whereas CSEs deal more with the technical challenges. And we definitely complement each other. But when I was hired, this was a new department and I was given the opportunity to set the scene for building the team. In my mind, CSEs also must provide that customer service. We can’t just be siloed to our headphones and screens. For me, the customer-facing component is key. Building relationships with customers is a daily necessity — they need to trust that I’ll be honest with them and see that I take their success with our products personally. To be able to say, “This is the solution I know you wanted, and we’re going to work together to make sure you achieve it,” and to forge an ongoing relationship with them is amazing. Because we’ve gotten to know them — what their needs are, how they use the products — we’ve been able to tailor solutions to each customer. There’s a continuum of care we need to provide our customers, which means we’re available when they need us and we pay close attention to them, not just because they’re our customers, but because we have that relationship and I care about their success.
Always Learning
I didn’t start my career preparing to work in Customer Success; I began in system administration, then storage administration. Prior to joining Palo Alto Networks, I provided support and consulting for storage solutions and automation projects. However, I served as a liaison between engineering and our support center, helping tech support to solve high-level, complex problems, or helping engineering to understand systemic issues with the product so they can fix them going forward. This is how I discovered that I loved that customer success component. I knew the cloud was where everything was headed, so I became passionate about teaching myself everything I could about the cloud. I’m the kind of person who needs to constantly learn and be challenged.
That’s when I began looking for a challenge and discovered Palo Alto Networks’ Customer Success role in GCS. Because I had the technical and customer-facing background and could demonstrate my ability to learn quickly and excel in this role, they gave me a chance to prove myself, and I’m so happy they did.
If you’re interested in pursuing this career, I don’t believe you necessarily have to have cybersecurity experience, but you should understand the basics of it while “knowing” the cloud and cloud native designs in and out. If you’re familiar with one or two cloud providers and can work your way around them, and perhaps have certifications from cloud providers to demonstrate your knowledge, we need that — the rest of the technology is teachable. But you also need those soft skills. Can you interact effectively with customers and your colleagues? You can’t just be transactional and technical; you need to be good at interpersonal relationships as well. This is a company that will give someone who’s passionate and hardworking a chance, but be proactive and demonstrate that.
This job can be very difficult and even exhausting. But it’s also fun and so rewarding, and every morning I wake up excited to do it all again. Everyone should feel that way about their job.
Because I am someone who thrives on learning and taking on new challenges, I’m continuing to evolve in my career at Palo Alto Networks. I am now transitioning to a new role and expect to continue serving our customers with cloud-native security solutions. I am super excited to shift to the world of a Systems Engineer Specialist for Cloud Security (Prisma Cloud) and help our customers conquer cloud security challenges using our solutions. This new role also entails greater challenges in new areas of the organization, which I aim to master. For me, this has been the natural, measurable journey that I have been striving for. While there are some key differences in shifting from Customer Success to Specialist Systems Engineering, the experience and relationships collected along the way will definitely help. I’m excited to take this next step of my career with Palo Alto Networks!
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.