Principal Escalations Engineer (Customer Engineering, Network Security)

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place.

Who We Are

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values: Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us!

We believe collaboration thrives in person. That’s why most of our teams work from the office full time, with flexibility when it’s needed. This model supports real-time problem-solving, stronger relationships, and the kind of precision that drives great outcomes.

Job Summary

The Team

Customer Support - Our Customer 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 evolves. As threats and technology change, we stay in step to accomplish our mission. You’ll be involved in implementing new products, transitioning from old products to new, and fixing 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 on providing the best customer support in the industry.

Job Summary

Customer Engineering (CE) is an elite technical response team sitting at the intersection of Product Engineering, Systems Reliability, and Technical Support. As a Principal Escalations Engineer, you serve as the expert escalation point for an AI-driven support ecosystem, diagnosing defects and driving resolutions alongside AI tools. You will operate as a code-aware escalation point for novel and systemic issues, defining autonomous AI troubleshooting workflows that empower our wider support organization. Ultimately, your work shapes features for supportability that define the future of our products and elevates our automation.

Key Responsibilities

• Drive top-tier technical escalations through deep technical analysis and defect diagnosis for customers in crisis.
• Collaborate with Engineering on hotfixes and represent engineering during critical executive communications.
• Identify product serviceability fixes and embed serviceability into early product design phases with QA teams.
• Define autonomous AI troubleshooting workflows, function-calling schemas, and guardrails for customer co-pilots.
• Author structured playbooks, guides, and tool definitions to empower human support engineers and AI agents.

Qualifications

Required Qualifications

• BS/MS or equivalent technical degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field.
• 7+ years of experience in technical support, systems engineering, or top-tier technical escalation roles at a cybersecurity or network security vendor.
• Solid hands-on understanding of L1–L7 networking, routing, switching, IPSEC, PKI, and SSL technologies.
• Strong debugging and infrastructure troubleshooting skills for network security equipment and cloud-based environments.
• Proficient in packet capture (PCAP) analysis using Wireshark, tcpdump, or similar tools.
• Ability to translate complex troubleshooting steps into structured markdown guides and deterministic tool definitions for AI execution.
• Demonstrated fast learning ability, high curiosity, strong initiative, and deep empathy for customers during technical crises.

Preferred Qualifications

• Hands-on proficiency across multi-cloud environments (AWS, Azure, GCP), SASE, CASB, and SWG technologies.
• Experience with advanced packet crafting and replay tools.
• Practical exposure to AI concepts including skill insertion, RAG knowledge base curation, and function-calling schemas.
• Familiarity with evaluation benchmarks and basic Python scripting for tool integrations.
• CCNA, CCNP, or equivalent vendor networking certifications.
• AWS Certified Solutions Architect – Associate or equivalent cloud certification (GCP / Azure).

#LI-MD2

Compensation Disclosure

The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/com-missioned roles) is expected to be the annual range listed below. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

$156,400.00 - $253,000.00/yr

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 accommodations@paloaltonetworks.com.

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.

Is role eligible for Immigration Sponsorship?: Yes