Principal Technical Support Engineer

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a senior technical authority to strengthen technical customer support for its product specialization. In this Principal Engineer role, you will set investigation standards, drive improvements that raise serviceability and defect quality, and help turn complex incident lessons into measurable outcomes. This onsite position in Dallas, TX includes mandatory weekend and holiday shift work as well as on-call support with a mix of as-needed and rotational coverage.

Salary range: USD 134,600 - 217,800 per year. Compensation depends on qualifications, experience, and work location, and may include restricted stock units and a bonus.

Responsibilities

• Maintain deep expertise in product architecture and deployments to establish cross-team investigation standards and identify emerging risks.
• Serve as technical authority for complex engagements and New Product Introductions (NPI) through advanced diagnostics, including packet/log analysis and lab reproductions.
• Lead investigation and mitigation strategy while supporting assigned engineers, keeping their case ownership and customer coordination intact.
• Communicate technical findings, risks, and recommendations clearly to technical teams, senior leadership, and customers.
• Own technical quality of defect submissions, ensure JIRAs include actionable evidence, and advocate with Engineering and PM to prioritize fixes based on business risk.
• Drive product serviceability by identifying gaps in diagnostics, tooling, and documentation, partnering with Engineering to implement and validate improvements.
• Influence product KPIs such as time to resolution, time to engineering engagement, defect quality, playbook usage, and Copilot adoption.
• Mentor engineers by converting complex investigations into advanced training, technical workshops, and reusable troubleshooting guidance.
• Facilitate evidence-based, blameless postmortems for significant incidents, driving corrective actions to completion.
• Proactively lead cross-functional projects to improve support processes and convert incident learnings into lasting organizational improvements.
• Provide support coverage that includes mandatory weekend and holiday shift work and on-call support; coverage is a blend of as-needed and rotational support and is subject to change.

Requirements

• 10-15+ years of relevant experience in enterprise networking, security, or support, with a Bachelor’s degree in a technical field, or equivalent practical/military experience.
• Deep product specialization across architecture, complex deployments, advanced troubleshooting, and failure analysis.
• Advanced hands-on diagnostic capability to resolve ambiguous problems, with strong judgment around customer impact and technical risk.
• Proven record of influencing Engineering, PM, and Support without reporting authority to drive technical initiatives and standards.
• Experience improving defect submission quality, product serviceability, and diagnostic practices across teams.
• Demonstrated ability to mentor engineers, facilitate postmortems, and lead process improvements from identification through validation.
• Clear communication skills for audiences from hands-on engineers to customer executives.
• Advanced certifications including Palo Alto Networks Certified Network Security Architect, CCIE, or equivalent expert-level networking/security certifications.
• Aligned Palo Alto Networks product certifications; equivalent demonstrated technical expertise is also considered.

Technologies

• packet/log analysis
• lab reproductions
• JIRAs
• Copilot

Work authorization / immigration: This role is not eligible for immigration sponsorship. Palo Alto Networks does not sponsor work visas for this position.

Palo Alto Networks is an equal opportunity employer. The company is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities. If you need assistance or accommodation, contact [email protected].