Principal Escalation Engineer — SaaS Security Advocate

Palo Alto Networks; Montpelier (VT); Hybrid; USD 147,000 - 238,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Escalation Engineer to serve as a key architect of customer stability and product maturity within the Jupiter Group. This is a high-impact, cross-functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of R&D, Product, and Customer Success.

You will not just resolve issues, you will fundamentally shape how our products are designed, built, and delivered. You will act as the “Voice of the Customer” within the engineering lifecycle, influencing

Qualifications

• 8+ years in software industry (Technical Support, R&D, or Sustaining Engineering).
• Product-Engineering mindset focusing on user experience.
• 5+ years troubleshooting complex SaaS/Cloud environments (AWS preferred).
• Strong technical depth: scripting in Python/Bash/Go, reading code, SQL.
• Exceptional communication and leadership; able to guide product and engineering teams.

Responsibilities

• Voice of the Customer in Design (Shift Left): join discovery and design sessions to validate features against real-world use cases and flag issues.
• Define holistic product & supportability requirements for onboarding, self-service tools, and connectivity checks.
• Own the R&D escalation strategy to restore delivery predictability.
• Drive operational excellence by refining PagerDuty alerts and defining the Definition of Ready.
• Empower the Support organization through high-level training and knowledge transfer.
• Lead incident lifecycle and CAPA to drive systemic improvements.
• Influence the roadmap using field data and trends to balance debt and usability.

Skills

SaaS troubleshooting

Python scripting

Communication skills

Leadership

Cross-team collaboration

Tools

Python

Bash

Go

SQL

Job description

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Escalation Engineer to serve as a key architect of customer stability and product maturity within the Jupiter Group. This is a high-impact, cross-functional leadership role that sits at the intersection of R&D, Product, and Customer Success.

You will not just resolve issues, you will fundamentally shape how our products are designed, built, and delivered. You will act as the “Voice of the Customer” within the engineering lifecycle, influencing