PreSales Systems Engineer

Quantum Corp. leads the world in helping users collaboratively solve some of the world's hardest computer challenges. Whether its wrangling Petabytes of data for cutting edge movie production, managing global content production workflows, exploring new sources of energy, or managing oceans of content and blending collaborative high-speed workflows with cutting-edge object storage, Quantum has the tools and technology to help you engineer the solution that works now - and preserves your work for decades to come. You are applying to an exceptional team that contributes to enhancing our position as a proven global expert in data management.

Job Summary:

The Solutions Architect participates in pre-sales activities such as technical presentations, assessment of technical and business requirements and detailed system design; participates in managing and developing customer and partner relationships for long-term success and is responsible for matching Quantum products to the problem being solved by articulating their capabilities and interoperability with 3rd-party products. The role requires considerable experience in data storage for backup, archival, and, preferably, experience with Media and Entertainment (Post, VFX, Broadcast, etc.) workflows in order to provide technical support for the development and implementation of complex solutions to prospective and existing customers.

The Solutions Architect must be able to create reference architectures and provide architecture guidance.

Job Duties and Responsibilities:

• Must demonstrate excellent interpersonal skills, very strong presentation skills, effective listening, excellent written and verbal communication skills, concern with quality deliverables, and an appropriate sense of urgency in fulfilling customer and Sales Team requirements.
• Uses in-depth product knowledge to provide technical expertise to sales staff, partners and customers through product presentations, "chalk talks", informal technology/product discussions, sales presentations and/or product demonstrations. Also responsible for providing informal training support to staff, partners and customers if necessary.
• Provides effective technical presentations on all aspects of our solutions to customers and partner, including conveying the features, functions, benefits, and capabilities of our products, as well as conveying how our products interoperate with 3rd-party products.
• Presentations also encompass and address customer needs and Quantum differentiators in addressing those needs.
• Addresses prospective customers, existing customers, and the Quantum Sales Team technical questions regarding our current and future products.
• Identifies and obtain customer functional and non-functional requirements in preparation for a detailed system design; including identification of all pertinent client’s infrastructure such as hardware platform(s), operating system(s), application (s), network topology, workflow(s), disk storage usage and capacity requirements, etc.
• Responsible for identifying and translating technical and business requirements through functional analysis into a clear set of architecture and solution design documents that include detailed Visio diagrams and technical briefs that can be used by the sales team to present a formal proposal to customers.
• Must be able to provide end to end solution and design details to customers by acting as a “product subject matter expert” to help identify and qualify business opportunities.
• Must Interface and coordinate tasks with internal and external technical resources, collaborating with Project Managers and Product Managers to develop “proof of concept” or “implementation solution” plans, and serve as a lead as required, to implement the installation, customization, and integration efforts.
• Assists in closing business by winning the "Technical Recommendation to Buy" through presentation of proposed solution, demonstrations, and/or evaluations.
• Provides technical input and support to Sales Team when responding to large RFIs or RFPs.
• Works with the Sales Team using a consultative approach to identify customer business needs and develop enterprise solutions to address those needs.
• Functions as an active member of the Quantum Sales Team, working to create and close sales opportunities with a strong ability to overcome normal technical barriers to sales.
• Participate in periodic Sales Funnel Reviews and responsible to maintain all customer’s technical information up to date in Salesforce.

Job Requirements:

• BS Degree, preferably in Engineering or Computer Science, and/or 8+ years of related experience in pre-sales technical position or associated degree or equivalent with experience in a pre-sales technical position.
• Complete understanding and mastery of the consultative sales process coupled with pre-sales design and implementation expertise in complex shared storage environments in media and technical workflows.
• Strong skills in Network topologies (i.e. OSI Model, P2P, Mesh, Bus, Star, FC-P2P, FC-AL, F-SW, etc.).
• Strong skills in Storage Technologies ( i.e. NAS, SAN, DAS, OSD, Software Defined Storage, etc).
• Good scripting skills (e.g. shell scripts, python, etc).
• Operating experience with storage management software packages (e.g. HSM, Archiving) with knowledge of storage management concepts, data communication, client/server environments.
• Strong skills in Media and Entertainment workflow knowledge, complex broadcast IT and post production environments.
• Strong M&E application, ISV, media formats and performance optimization consulting.
• Strong skills in Information Lifecycle Management and backup strategies (i.e. Legal Risk, Business Value, IT Efficiency).
• Strong Skills in project management (I.e. Evaluation, Designing, Development and Analysis.
• Strong skills in IT governance framework (I.e. Corporate Requirements, Industry standards, regulatory Environments, Risk and Resource Management, etc).
• Strong customer relations skills and understanding of the sales cycle.
• Strong written, oral and exemplary presentational skills.
• Working knowledge of MAC, UNIX, LINUX and Windows, and/or other hardware & software certifications a plus.
• Ability to work independently, as well as contributing as a team player.
• Evidence of personal and professional energy and excellence.
• Experience performing needs assessments, and making recommendations based on the discovered needs.

Essential Functions:

• Must be able to instruct, guide, negotiate, coordinate, analyze and organize.
• Must interact with others in a team environment and also work alone.
• Must complete tasks on time with and without supervision.
• Ability to use logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
• Ability to communicate information and ideas so others can understand.
• Ability to analyze information and evaluate results.