Cloud Solutions Architect - Google

Job Summary

We are hiring for a remote position for NetApp’s Google Cloud Solutions Architect (CSA) team supporting our Canadian customer base, to operate in a pre-sales capacity, working to identify candidate workloads, design and architect appropriate solutions, run proofs-of-concept, and move customers into active consumption of NetApp’s Google Cloud-based products.

Much of the customer engagement will be done collaboratively with the Google Cloud Sales and CSA teams, where we are providing the technical expertise on Cloud services offered by NetApp and Google Cloud. There is also an evangelism side of the role – the qualified candidate must be capable of articulating how our technology enables customer innovation in Google Cloud. This is a highly technical role with a heavy focus on customer and partner (Google) interaction, education, and collaboration, and you will find yourself in the heart of our customers’ digital transformation efforts.

Location: Candidates must be in EST or CST time zones.  Ideal location in Montreal or Toronto.  

About Us:

We are part of the global Cloud Solutions Architect team within NetApp’s Public Cloud Services business unit, specifically tasked with driving customer adoption of our Google Cloud services. Our Sales, Technical, and Customer Success teams are charged with implementing and scaling the many Cloud and software services in our portfolio and exceeding our Sales goals. It’s a very dynamic area within NetApp, and we pride ourselves on our agility, adaptability, and continuous process improvement.

Job Responsibilities

• Qualifying customer opportunities and requirements, and the potential solution fit for NetApp’s offerings in Google Cloud.
• Designing solutions that may include one or more of software, Cloud, and professional services; running technical workshops to demonstrate those solutions.
• Presenting (Solution Selling) at customer and partner briefings, Google and NetApp sales meetings, corporate events, etc.
• Designing and running proofs-of-concept to illustrate solution fit within the customer’s environment.
• Handover new customer wins to Customer Success and / or Professional Services.
• Participating in / hosting industry meet-ups and user groups.
• Publishing reference architectures, significant wins, best practices, etc., both internally and externally.
• Maintaining customer Opportunity status in Salesforce.
• Self-study / learning time:
  • Staying abreast of the latest developments in public cloud services.
  • Acquiring / maintaining technical expertise.
  • Developing or enhancing processes and techniques employed by our Sales and Technical teams.

Requirements & Education

• Desire Bachelor’s degree plus 8+ years of related field experience.
• Any Google Cloud certifications are a plus.
• Strong technical knowledge of Cloud concepts and technologies, particularly Google Cloud (Google Cloud Professional Cloud Architect certification preferred).
• A passion for solving customer business challenges with Cloud technology solutions.
• Demonstrated understanding of AI concepts and practical competency applying AI-enabled tools and capabilities to improve technical discovery, solution design, customer engagement, and productivity.
• Personal initiative - you will not be closely supervised, so this job requires a motivated, results-oriented individual who can achieve customer success without close supervision.
• Experience in working with customers within the as a Service space.
• Ability to prioritize and address multiple projects concurrently.
• Appetite to learn and adapt to changing requirements and technology.
• Experience running proofs-of-concept for software, hardware, or Cloud-based solutions in a pre-sales role.
• Experience with Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) concepts, and an understanding of how application workloads such as SAP, HPC, virtual desktops, VMware, self-managed databases, and others utilize file and block storage in a Cloud environment.
• Familiarity with Container orchestration runtime concepts and solutions is a plus (preferably Kubernetes).
• On-premises infrastructure and workload experience and data migration methodologies are a plus.
• Willingness to travel within the assigned geography to customer locations, and occasionally further.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Strong English language skills (French is a plus).