Hiring: Palo Alto Networks Practice Manager / Technical Lead Company: Virtual Service Operations Location: Fort Meade, MD Job Posted Time: 2026-09-16 16:21:53 Employment Type: Hybrid Target Skills & Keywords : AWS, BGP About the job Required Skills: •Are you looking to take the next step in your career as a Palo Alto Networks Practice Manager / Technical Lead? Let's chat and see if we are a good match! •Define and stand up VSO's Palo Alto Networks Security practice — service offerings, delivery methodology, and technical standards across NGFW, Panorama, Prisma SASE, and SD-WAN. •Design and review architectures for NGFW deployments, Panorama-managed environments, and Prisma SASE/SD-WAN rollouts. •Serve as the senior technical escalation point and hands-on lead for early engagements while the delivery team is being built out. •Develop repeatable playbooks, reference architectures, and migration methodologies for legacy-to-NGFW and SASE/SD-WAN transitions. •Recruit, hire, mentor, and technically develop engineers as the practice grows, building bench strength and internal certification paths. •Support sales and account teams with technical scoping, solution design, and proposal content for Palo Alto opportunities. •Maintain relationships with Palo Alto Networks account and SE teams to stay ahead of product direction and partner resources. Qualifications: •Strong experience in network and security solutions, with deep, hands-on Palo Alto Networks NGFW and Panorama experience at scale (PA-1400/3400/5500/7000 Series, VM Series). •Strong technical depth in Prisma SASE and SD-WAN architectures (ZTNA, SWG, CASB, cloud-delivered firewall, app-aware routing). •Prior experience building, launching, or significantly scaling a technical practice or service line — ideally vendor-aligned. •In-depth knowledge of BGP, SD-WAN concepts, VXLAN, and general routing/switching. •Comfortable supporting pre-sales conversations and technical scoping, without this being the primary focus of the role. •Excellent written and verbal communication skills; confident presenting architecture and technical strategy to senior leaders and customers. •Entrepreneurial mindset — comfortable operating with ambiguity and building technical structure where none currently exists. •Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, MIS, Business, or equivalent education, training, or experience. •Operational familiarity with DoD security frameworks and classified network environments. •PCNSE, CISSP, CNSE, CCNA, or JNCIE-SEC certification. Compensation: •$110,000 - $210,000 / year Interested candidates, please apply directly through the job posting on company's career page or try via AI auto apply on this platform. Don't miss this opportunity to join a forward-thinking team!