Palo Alto Networks Practice Manager / Technical Lead

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!

Opportunity:

Virtual Service Operations is looking for an experienced, hands-on Palo Alto Networks Practice Manager / Technical Lead to stand up and grow our PANW security practice across DoD and federal markets, supporting a DoD customer in the Reston, VA / Fort Meade, MD area. As the technical owner of this new practice, you will define service offerings across NGFW, Panorama, Prisma SASE, and SD-WAN, establish architecture standards and delivery playbooks, lead early technical engagements yourself, and grow the engineering team behind the practice. You will also support sales in shaping and winning new opportunities, but the core of this role is technical ownership. If you have deep Palo Alto Networks expertise, strong technical leadership instincts, and an entrepreneurial mindset for building something from the ground up, we want to hear from you!

Responsibilities:

• 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.
• Track practice technical health — delivery quality, engineer utilization, and skill gaps — and report progress to VSO leadership.

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 (PANW, Cisco, Fortinet, etc.).
• Strong understanding of BGP, SD-WAN concepts, VXLAN, and general routing/switching.
• Experience leading complex NGFW/SASE migrations from design through cutover in large, mission-critical environments.
• 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.
• Familiarity with DoD security frameworks and classified network environments.

Preferred Qualifications:

• PCNSE, CISSP, CNSE, CCNA, or JNCIE-SEC certification.