Client Solutions Engineer

AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.   At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD.    We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived.    We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD. 
Senior Client Solutions Engineer   The Senior Client Solutions Engineer assists AHEAD Client Directors through formal technical presentations and technical design assistance of AHEAD’s solution and service offerings to existing and prospective clients. The Senior Pre Sales Technical Architect owns all technical aspects of a sales campaign and hand off to the consulting and services team; maintaining strong relationships with our clients.   In this role, you are a thought leader within the Engineering organization, responsible for designing, architecting, and, at times, consulting for AHEAD clients. We expect our Senior Client Solutions Engineer to have deep knowledge across our Enterprise Cloud Framework including Cloud Management and Operations, Security, Datacenter Infrastructure and Public Cloud. Your goal as a Senior Client Solutions Engineer should be to build skills, relationships, and industry credibility across more than one of these segments to drive product and services sales.    You will work in partnership with one or more Client Directors to help build a cohesive account strategy for each existing and prospective clients. As part of this strategy, you will help Client Directors identify potential technologies and vendors to partner within a given account and assist in driving this strategy throughout the sales campaign.   Time management and prioritization are essential attributes of a successful Senior Client Solutions Engineer. Your goal is to evolve into the technical thought leader for each of your clients. In this capacity, you will work to define strategy, compare and contrast alternative approaches, and build key relationships, as well as size and configure products.  Positioning and leveraging Subject Matter Experts (Practice Directors, Solution Principals, Specialists, Client Services, etc.) is a necessity to scale your effectiveness within accounts.  You will also be expected to provide insight and details regarding work effort and client engagement to enable tracking of key KPIs throughout the year through tools that will be provided to you.   Education is critical to your success at AHEAD. You are expected to continually educate not only yourself, but also our clients and your team resources.

Roles and Responsibilities

• Possess deep data center expertise (multiple layers of the stack).
• Present at Technical Briefings and Lab Demonstrations with clients and partners to showcase AHEAD's value.
• Considered a Subject Matter Expert (SME) in one or many technologies for the team to leverage.
• Recognized by the partner community to own technical sales campaigns without their support.
• Qualify and position consulting engagements and services.
• Provide coaching and mentoring to team resources in order to enhance their solution knowledge, technical acumen, and pre-sales skill sets.
• Qualify sales opportunities in the terms of client technical requirements, decision making process and funding and decides if we should move forward with the campaign.
• Understand and articulate AHEAD's Enterprise Cloud Framework.
• Prioritize opportunities and efforts assigned to the geography based on maximizing total impact on team productivity and profit.
• Drive engagement conversions to additional services / solutions.
• Provide feedback to improve internal efficiencies.
• Work with Practice Directors to provide input and suggestions for new solutions and offerings.
• Present regularly at AHEAD events, user groups, conferences, and forums.
• Lead Solution Verification / BOM Review process for the geography.

Qualifications

• Bachelors degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or equivalent
• 4+ years Pre Sales and Data Center experience is required
• Professional communication, presentation, analytical, and problem-solving skills
• Experience working as a technical lead in a pre-sales sales campaign
• Extensive knowledge of one or more of the following data center solutions: storage, networking, compute, virtualization, data center management / automation, and security
• Ability to work under critical conditions and influence others to achieve results
• Strong interpersonal skills with excellent presentation skills
• Must be independent, self motivated, a self starter and possess a good working attitude
• Able to work well within a team and partner environment
• Customer focused and results driven The compensation range indicated in this posting reflects the On-Target Earnings (“OTE”) for this role, which includes a base salary and any applicable target bonus amount. This OTE range may vary based on the candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications, and geographic location.     Why AHEAD:   Through our daily work and internal groups like Moving Women AHEAD and RISE AHEAD, we value and benefit from diversity of people, ideas, experience, and everything in between.   We fuel growth by stacking our office with top-notch technologies in a multi-million-dollar lab, by encouraging cross department training and development, sponsoring certifications and credentials for continued learning.   USA Employment Benefits include:  - Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance  - 401(k)  - Paid company holidays  - Paid time off  - Paid parental and caregiver leave  - Plus more! See benefits https://www.aheadbenefits.com/ for additional details.    Use of AI: We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, assessing responses, or to capture recordings and create transcriptions or summaries during interviews. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans.   If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please refer to the Candidate Privacy Notice or contact us at privacy@ahead.com.    You may opt-out of the review or analysis of your application and resume by AI tools by using the General Application. Please include the role you wish to apply for in the Additional Information field. You may also choose to opt-out of recording and transcription at any time, including after joining an interview.  Candidates will not be penalized for choosing to opt-out.