Account Director

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Overview

Qualys, a leader in cloud cybersecurity solutions, is seeking a motivated individual to join our sales team. In this role, you will be instrumental in driving sales growth by managing existing enterprise-level customer accounts, ensuring renewals, and identifying upsell opportunities. You will collaborate closely with internal teams to deliver exceptional service and contribute to our mission of securing digital transformation for our clients.

• Account Management: Build and maintain strong relationships with enterprise-level customers, ensuring their needs are met and fostering long-term partnerships.
• Business Development: Hunt, develop, and close upsell opportunities within your assigned territory, leveraging outbound efforts and channel partnerships.
• Sales Strategy: Create and execute a comprehensive territory plan to meet and exceed bookings objectives, aligning your efforts with Qualys' growth targets.
• Sales Presentations: Deliver high-level and detailed sales presentations that effectively communicate the value of Qualys’ cybersecurity solutions to prospective clients.
• RFI/RFP Management: Respond to functional and technical elements of RFIs/RFPs, tailoring responses to align with customer requirements and demonstrate Qualys’ capabilities.
• Technical Support: Collaborate effectively with our Technical Support Engineers (TSEs) who are responsible for driving successful case outcomes.
• Market Awareness: Stay updated on industry trends, cybersecurity developments, and regulatory changes, enabling you to position Qualys’ solutions effectively in the market.
• Conference Attendance: Represent Qualys at conferences and seminars, both virtually and in-person, engaging with potential customers and showcasing our offerings.
• Collaboration: Partner with Sales Engineers, Solution Architects, Sales Leadership, and Marketing teams to align on customer needs and enhance our product offerings, ensuring seamless execution of strategies for customer success.

Required Qualifications:

• Proven experience in account management or sales, preferably in the cybersecurity or technology sector.
• Strong understanding of cloud cybersecurity solutions and recurring revenue models.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with a demonstrated ability to build relationships at all organizational levels.
• Proficient in CRM tools and sales forecasting methodologies.
• Ability to analyze market trends and customer feedback to identify upsell opportunities.
• Self-motivated, results-driven, and capable of working independently as well as collaboratively in a team environment.
• Need to own the account and effectively manage account support teams.
• Highly organized and able to manage multiple accounts and multiple accounts teams. Need to understand how to keep projects moving.
• Manage quarterly business reviews, executive reviews and product roadmap sessions
• Negotiating and closing contracts
• Maintain regular cadence calls with account teams to review health, strategies, projects and business requirements
• Track account leads and ensure timely response for company SLA’s
• Coordinate support and technical teams to resolve product related issues or technical challenges
• Required to preparing sales proposals, coordinating contract requirements and processing orders
• Must be willing to travel

#LI-Remote

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Qualys is an Equal Opportunity Employer, please see our EEO policy.

Company Description

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks® everything starts and ends with our mission:

Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we’re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

Who We Are

We take our mission of protecting the digital way of life seriously. We are relentless in protecting our customers and we believe that the unique ideas of every member of our team contributes to our collective success. Our values were crowdsourced by employees and are brought to life through each of us everyday - from disruptive innovation and collaboration, to execution. From showing up for each other with integrity to creating an environment where we all feel included.

As a member of our team, you will be shaping the future of cybersecurity. We work fast, value ongoing learning, and we respect each employee as a unique individual. Knowing we all have different needs, our development and personal wellbeing programs are designed to give you choice in how you are supported. This includes our FLEXBenefits wellbeing spending account with over 1,000 eligible items selected by employees, our mental and financial health resources, and our personalized learning opportunities - just to name a few!

• You will drive and orchestrate complex sales cycles and work with our internal partners and teams to best serve the customer
• Your consultative selling experience will identify business challenges and create solutions for prospects and our customers
• Understand the competitive landscape and customer needs so you can effectively position the portfolio of Palo Alto Networks solutions
• Create clear goals and complete accurate forecasting through developing a detailed territory plan
• Leverage prospect stories to create a compelling value proposition with insights into value for that specific account
• Stay updated on industry news and trends, and how they affect Palo Alto Networks products and services
• Travel as necessary within your territory, and to company-wide meetings

Required Qualifications

• Experience and knowledge of SaaS-based architectures, ideally in a networking and/or security industry - SASE technology is preferred
• Demonstrated experience selling complex solutions, value selling, and/or consultative sales techniques
• Technical aptitude for understanding how technology products and solutions solve business problems
• Identifies problems, reviews data, determines the root causes, and provides scalable solutions
• Cultivate relationships with our channel partners to bring channel-centric go-to-market approach for our customers
• Demonstrates in depth knowledge of the full sales cycle and the ability to follow a structured sales process
• Ability to take a holistic approach to problem solving by understanding the bigger picture, and considering complex interrelationships and outcomes
• Excellent time management skills, and work with high levels of autonomy and self-direction

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Preferred Qualifications

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The Team

Our sales team members work hand-in-hand with large organizations around the world to keep their digital environments protected. We educate, inspire, and empower our potential clients in their journey to security.

As part of our sales team, you are empowered with unmatched systems and tools, constantly updated research and sales libraries, and a team built on joint success. You won’t find someone at Palo Alto Networks that isn’t committed to your success – with everyone pitching in to assist when it comes to solutions selling, learning, and development. As a member of our sales team, you are motivated by a solutions-focused sales environment and find fulfillment in working with clients to resolve incredibly complex cyberthreats.

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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/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $255,000 - $351,000/YR. The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus. A description of our employee benefits may be found here.

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Our Commitment

We’re problem solvers that 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 [email protected].

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.

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Motor-Vehicle Requirement:

This role may require travel to and from Palo Alto Networks, Inc. business meetings and events and requires reliable transportation to do so. If a hire chooses to drive in connection with company business, the hire for this role must maintain a valid driver’s license.

ROLE OVERVIEW

We are seeking an experienced Security Practice Sales Engineer with a strong technical background in Data Discovery and Classification, Data and Cloud Infrastructure Security to join our growing team. This individual will be pivotal in driving sales efforts by offering expertise on security solutions, particularly in the areas of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and Cloud Security. The ideal candidate will have hands-on experience with major Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) like AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle.

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As a Security Practice Sales Engineer, this role involves working closely with the sales team to understand customer needs, demonstrate the value of security solutions, and ensure that enterprise clients' data is secure and compliant across various cloud environments and data systems. The position entails leading and engaging throughout the sales lifecycle, from discovering the customer’s requirements to writing proposals, demonstrating solutions, architecting tailored security architectures, building customer trust, and driving the proof of concept to achieve the technical win.

• Sales Support & Technical Leadership: Partner with the sales team to drive the technical aspects of the sales cycle. Lead discussions around Data Discovery, DSPM, and cloud security, and present tailored security solutions to prospective clients.
• Customer Focus: Use a deep understanding of industry best practices to help customers navigate complex situations and achieve optimal outcomes. Ensure that solutions are not only technically sound but also aligned with their broader business objectives, fostering long-term partnerships and delivering measurable value.
• Cloud Security Expertise: Provide technical leadership in securing cloud environments, including AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle, focusing on data protection, regulatory compliance, and cloud infrastructure security.
• Data Architecture: In-depth knowledge of enterprise data architecture, data privacy, and security technologies.
• SaaS Application Security: Advise customers on best practices for securing SaaS applications and ensure that their cloud applications meet security and compliance standards.
• Data Access & Governance: Lead discussions around Data Access Controls, Compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS), and Data Governance best practices to ensure clients’ data security and regulatory requirements are met.
• Technical Presentations & Demos: Conduct product demos, POCs, and presentations to clearly communicate the value of security solutions to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Collaboration & Relationship Building: Work cross-functionally with engineering, product management, and customer success teams to ensure successful implementation of security solutions and maintain strong client relationships.
• Value Delivery: Collaborate closely with post-sales teams to ensure that customers fully realize the value of their investments by effectively implementing and optimizing solutions.

QUALIFICATIONS

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• Technical Expertise in Data Discovery: Experience defining and implementing Data Discovery policies, including various techniques such as REGEX, Patterns, Dictionaries, Keywords and Exact Data Matching.
• Operational Proficiency with Cloud Infrastructure: Hands-on experience with cloud infrastructure, specifically AWS, Azure, GCP, and Oracle including identity and access management (IAM), and cloud security best practices.
• Experience with DSPM: Strong knowledge of Data Security Posture Management (DSPM) and its application in cloud environments.
• SaaS Security: Experience in securing SaaS applications and providing guidance on how to apply security best practices in cloud-based applications.
• Data Governance & Compliance: Understanding of Data Access Controls, Data Governance, and compliance frameworks such as GDPR, HIPAA, and PCI-DSS.
• Data Systems: Operational experience with one or more of the following data systems: MongoDB, Cassandra, DynamoDB, HDFS, Hive, HBase, AWS S3, DynamoDB, Redshift, Azure file and blob storage, etc.
• Linux & Kubernetes: Proficiency in Linux and Networking, with experience in containerized environments using Kubernetes is a plus.
• Sales Engineering Experience: Proven experience in a Sales Engineer or Pre-Sales Engineer role, with a strong ability to engage with both technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Effective Communication Skills: Strong verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical solutions clearly to a diverse audience. Outstanding presentation, communication, and interpersonal skills.
• General knowledge of privacy regulatory requirements: Understanding of gathering consent, complying with Data subject rights, data mapping, and or data breach.

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PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS

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• Successful Sales Engineering track record with minimum of 5+ years pre-sales engineering or consulting role focusing on medium and large enterprise accounts.
• Bachelor's degree in a technical field or a related discipline.
• Relevant industry certifications with focus on cloud or security such as AWS Fundamentals, Azure, GCP, CISSP, CISM or similar.
• Experience with security tools and platforms focused on data protection, cloud security, and compliance. Expertise in CASB (Cloud Access Security Brokers), SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), and DLP (Data Loss Prevention) technologies and their business applications.
• Strong technical acumen with ability to comprehend & communicate intricate technical concepts
• Experience in designing, developing, and refining RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) models
• Knowledge of vector databases and indexing methods to store and retrieve information for conversational contexts.

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