Solutions Consultant - Higher Education and Research

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!

This role is remote, but distance is no barrier to impact. Our hybrid teams collaborate across geographies to solve big problems, stay close to our customers, and grow together. You will be part of a culture that values trust, accountability, and shared success where your work truly matters.

Job Summary

Your Career as a Solutions Consultant in our Higher Education and Research team will leverage your extensive experience in Cyber Security and your deep understanding of the unique challenges and requirements of the Education sector. We are seeking a professional who can translate complex technical solutions into strategic business value for our clients with a proven track record of working within the industry and has experience of working with or for Systems Integrators.

The Solutions Consultant is the evolution of the traditional Sales Engineering role, aligning how we best serve our customers in understanding their environment, providing solution guidance and ensuring value realization in their investment with Palo Alto Networks. As a Solutions Consultant you provide technical leadership and expertise and guidance in your customer’s security transformation journey. You will play a key role in defining technical solutions that secure a customer’s key business imperatives and ensuring value realization of their investment with Palo Alto Networks. You evangelize our industry leadership in on-prem, cloud, and security operations services that establish PANW as your customer’s cybersecurity partner of choice.
Your Impact
Curiosity is core to the Solutions Consultant role, and you see complex problems as opportunities to learn and deliver innovative solutions! You define your impact by:
Meeting and exceeding sales quotas by building and implementing strategic, technical account plans that target cross-platform solutions
Your ability to position, demonstrate and create high level designs across the entire PANW portfolio based on customer business needs
Conducting discovery to understand and articulate the key technical, operational, and commercial imperatives of your prospects and customers
Working closely with Professional Services, Customer Success and Specialist teams to ensure overall customer implementation and adoption of solutions
Demonstrating strong communication skills and the ability to influence through effective presentations and customer-specific demos, technical engagements, and workshops
Leading successful technical validation efforts based on best practices to ensure technical win in assigned opportunities
Orchestrating supporting resources (Specialists, Channel Resources, Customer Support) to ensure a one-team approach that demonstrates a cohesive strategy
Promoting end-to-end solutions that include PANW and/or partner professional services to ensure customers realize business value sooner
Understanding the competitive landscape and effectively differentiating our leadership
Continuously investing in yourself to develop technical and professional skills that drive your ever-increasing contributions to success of our customers while actively participating within the Solutions Consultant community and at industry events
(OT) - Identifying technical stakeholders and cultivating relationships with key personas to build and drive a security architecture transformation roadmap

Qualifications

Your Experience
Understanding of data networking and/or modern application design and cloud architectures
Delivering cybersecurity solutions that solve technical challenges and influence new business initiatives
Influencing and gaining buy-in from key stakeholders, either in a customer-facing or internal role; prior experience in a pre-sales role is ideal
Creating and delivering technical presentations, workshops, or technical validation engagements
Experience in selling, designing, implementing, or managing one or more of the following solutions: Network Security, SASE, SaaS, CNAPP and/or SOC Transformation Technologies
Partnering with Customer Support functions to ensure successful implementation and adoption of sold solutions
Complex sales involving long sales processes with multiple buying centers and multi-product solutions are preferred
Proficient in English

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.

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? No. Please note that we will not sponsor applicants for work visas for this position.