Principal Software Escalation Engineer

Palo Alto Networks; Charleston (SC); On-site; USD 147,000 - 238,000; Full time

Job summary

Palo Alto Networks is seeking a Principal Escalation Engineer to shape product maturity and customer stability across the Jupiter Group. You will bridge R&D, Product, and Customer Success, acting as the Voice of the Customer throughout the engineering lifecycle and ensuring on-budget, on-time delivery with usable, deployable solutions.

Join us to influence architecture, drive proactive improvements, and mentor teams in a fast-paced cloud security environment.

Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in the software industry (Technical Support, R&D, or Sustaining Engineering).
• You care deeply about the user experience, not just code execution.
• 5+ years of hands-on experience troubleshooting complex SaaS/Cloud environments (AWS preferred).
• Strong technical depth (scripting in Python/Bash/Go, reading code, SQL) to investigate issues and build tooling.
• Exceptional communication and leadership skills; can challenge a PM and guide a developer on logging standards.

Responsibilities

• Voice of the Customer in Design (Shift Left): provide feedback on features for real-world use cases.
• Define holistic product & supportability requirements covering onboarding, self-service tools, and connectivity checks.
• Own the R&D escalation strategy and establish a predictive pipeline for deliveries.
• Drive operational excellence by shaping health monitoring, PagerDuty alerts, and handoffs.
• Empower the Support Organization through high-level training and knowledge transfer.
• Lead incident lifecycle and CAPA to ensure systemic improvements after failures.
• Influence the roadmap with field data to balance debt and usability with new features.

Skills

Communication

Leadership

Cross-team collaboration

SaaS troubleshooting

Python

Bash

Go

SQL

Education

Tools

AWS

Job description

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.

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

• This role can be filled anywhere in the United States*

We’re looking for 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 architectural decisions to ensure our solutions are not only robust but also intuitive to deploy and manage. By treating supportability and onboarding as core product features, you will protect R&D capacity, accelerate delivery, and ensure our innovations succeed in the real world.

What You’ll Do

• Voice of the Customer in Design (Shift Left): Join discovery and design sessions to validate proposed features against real-world customer use cases. You will provide critical feedback on design and UX before development begins, flagging if a feature will be difficult to implement, fails to address specific edge cases, or introduces friction that hinders adoption.
• Define Holistic Product & Supportability Requirements: Go beyond standard logging; define the capabilities needed to streamline the entire customer journey. This includes specifying requirements for smoother product onboarding, self-service troubleshooting tools, and connectivity checks (e.g., demanding a prerequisite script for connector installation or built-in latency monitoring between components).
• Own the R&D Escalation Strategy: Act as the single accountable authority for technical escalations, replacing reactive "ping-pong" with a structured, predictive pipeline that restores delivery predictability to the sprint teams.
• Drive Operational Excellence: Transform how we monitor and maintain health by owning the logic behind PagerDuty alerts, reducing noise, and defining the "Definition of Ready" for operational handoffs.
• Empower the Support Organization: Act as a force multiplier by leading high-level training and knowledge transfer, enabling Support to resolve complex issues independently and lowering the escalation rate.
• Lead Incident Lifecycle & CAPA: Drive the post-incident process, ensuring that every failure results in a systemic improvement, whether it’s a code fix, a documentation update, or a process change.
• Influence the Roadmap: Use data from the field (trends, escaped bugs, and friction points) to drive strategic roadmap decisions, ensuring we prioritize technical debt and usability improvements alongside new features.

Qualifications

What You Bring

• 8+ years of experience in the software industry (Technical Support, R&D, or Sustaining Engineering).
• A "Product-Engineering" Mindset: You can look at a technical design and immediately foresee how a customer will struggle with it. You care deeply about the user experience, not just the code execution.
• 5+ years of hands‑on experience troubleshooting complex SaaS/Cloud environments (AWS preferred).
• Strong technical depth (scripting in Python/Bash/Go, reading code, SQL) to investigate issues independently and build tooling.
• Exceptional communication and leadership skills: You can challenge a Product Manager on a use case or guide a developer on a logging standard with equal confidence.
• Proven ability to drive cross‑team initiatives and influence stakeholders without direct authority.
• Highly self‑motivated with a strong sense of ownership and accountability.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in the Cyber Security domain.
• Background in Customer Success Engineering or Solutions Engineering.
• Experience defining architectural standards for observability and deployability.
• Experience defining "Definition of Ready" processes for escalation handling.

Join us

Join us to be the customer’s advocate in the room where decisions happen. Your vision will directly impact the quality, usability, and success of CyberArk’s next‑generation cloud platform.

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.

$147,000.00 - $237,500.00/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 [e-mail].

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