Engineering TAC Engineer

Your Career

The Engineering TAC (ETAC) team is a small global team and an exciting crossroads between Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and Engineering. This team is uniquely empowered to drive decisions and to be the thought leaders within the Global Customer Support organization at Palo Alto Networks. On any given day, members of the team may work with cutting-edge new hardware and software projects very early in the product life cycle, develop and deliver advanced technical training, assist a support engineer with a challenging customer issue, replicate a complex issue in our lab, evaluate customer network design, or help improve features for supportability and usability that shape the future of our products. Our roles are very hands-on and have a high impact on the company. 

You’ll be  networking and collaborating with key contacts outside your own area of expertise such as Product Management, QA, Engineering, Sales, and more, with a strong capability of detailing difficult technical issues to both non-technical and technical professionals. You will regularly not just participate in, but lead technical discussions with cross-functional teams, creating an environment of transparency that ultimately leads to better products, better working environments, and better cybersecurity. You are a good candidate if you are the type of person who asks “why” as opposed to just accepting an answer. 

Your Impact

• Enable TAC support teams by providing deeper technical expertise and guidance for Next-Gen Firewall (NGFW) PAN-OS platforms - This includes structured training throughout the year as well as ad hoc sessions and Q&A over Zoom
• Work directly with Engineering on cutting-edge new product development - With your combined technical expertise in our state-of-the-art cybersecurity platform, and knowledge and skills learned from prior technical support experience, as an ETAC engineer you will define supportability and usability requirements for new products during the design phase as well as post GA via enhancement requests
• Develop and deliver advanced training materials for TAC support and Engineering teams - Training is a key component of the day-to-day success of support - An ETAC engineer has the highest level of expertise amongst support teams, and is responsible for staying up to date with technical details on Palo Alto Networks new products and industry in general - You will share those details with TAC via technical documentation and training sessions
• Develop troubleshooting focused tools and scripts to help solve customer issues and support the product
• Work with TAC to provide expert-level technical support of customer issues that involve complex WAN architectures and network security
• Own critical and executive level issues for LAN/WAN and NGFWs - You will work primarily with Customer Support and Engineering with the focus on assisting them with identifying and resolving customer issues - This usually means working with the TAC case owner and development engineering on a replication or verification and communicating updates
• Identify problems and take actions to fix them across support and product life cycles - Sometimes there are opportunities to catch a problem before it is escalated or becomes widespread - ETAC is positioned to identify or help in these unplanned projects that result in a better customer experience, and is also empowered to help implement enhancements and automations that save time and provide better security and usability

Your Experience

• Minimum of 7 years of professional experience
• Technical Support experience supporting enterprise customers with complex LAN/WAN environments
• Deep understanding of TCP/IP and advanced knowledge of LAN/WAN technologies, expertise with general routing/switching, Routing protocols (e.g BGP, OSPF), branch and data center architectures
• Expertise with Remote Access VPN solutions, IPSEC, PKI & SSL
• Experience with Palo Alto Networks products is highly desired
• Familiarity with C, Python, and other scripting languages is a plus - You’re not applying to be a developer, but you should have some background in reading and compiling from professional or personal projects
• Understand how data packets go through a box - The box shouldn’t be a “black box”, you should know what is happening to a packet at different stages and how that can impact problems
• Excellent communication skills with the ability to deliver highly technical informative presentations - You’re not being hired to answer phone calls from the queue, but you will speak with customers from time to time as well as to developers, sales engineers and the rest of your team
• Proficiency in creating technical documentation using applications such as Powerpoint/Google Slides or knowledge-base/intranet platforms such as Lumapps, Jive or Confluence
• Willing to work flexible times including occasional weekends and evenings - The ETAC team does not work on shifts - However, some critical situations could call for after-hours activities as well as weekend on-call

The Team

Our technical support team is critical to our success and mission. As part of this team, you enable customer success by providing support to clients after they have purchased our products. Our dedication to our customers doesn’t stop once they sign – it just evolves. Our technical team provides the behind-the-scenes support to meet our customer’s needs. As threats and technology evolve, we stay in step to accomplish our mission. You’ll be involved in implementing new products, transitioning from old products to new, and will fix integrations and critical issues as they are raised – in fact, you’ll seek them out to ensure our clients are safely supported. We fix and identify technical problems, with a pointed focus of providing the best customer support in the industry.

We’re a fast-growing, immensely successful organization because of our people and products (built and supported by our people). We define the industry instead of waiting for directions. We need individuals who feel comfortable in ambiguity, excited by the prospect of a challenge, and empowered by the unknown risks facing our everyday lives that are only enabled by a secure digital environment.

Our Commitment

We’re trailblazers that dream big, take risks, and challenge cybersecurity’s status quo. It’s simple: we can’t accomplish our mission without diverse teams innovating, together.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for all qualified individuals with a disability. If you require assistance or accommodation due to a disability or special need, please contact us at 

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity in our workplace, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or other legally protected characteristics.

All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.

Covid-19 Vaccination Information for Palo Alto Networks Jobs

• Vaccine requirements and disclosure obligations vary by country.
• Unless applicable law requires otherwise, you must be vaccinated for COVID or qualify for a reasonable accommodation if:
  • The job requires accessing a company worksite
  • The job requires in-person customer contact and the customer has implemented such requirements
  • You choose to access a Palo Alto Networks worksite
• If you have questions about the vaccine requirements of this particular position based on your location or job requirements, please inquire with the recruiter.