Presales Engineer / Associate Configuration Engineer at Sterling Computers Corporation – North Sioux City, South Dakota

Title: Presales Engineer / Associate Configuration Engineer

Reports to: Director of Presales Engineering

Location: North Sioux City, South Dakota

Job Description: The Associate Configuration Engineer (ACE) will work closely with sales Account Managers (AM’s) as a technology generalist with a focus area in one or more group of technologies (as listed under “Requirements”), while teaming up with internal stakeholders and vendor partners in order to configure, validate and propose solutions to customer’s complex technology challenges. The presales engineer will explain and demonstrate technical solutions to customers in creative ways and presentations that articulate its capabilities and drive interest in proposed solutions. Because of the presales engineer’s hybrid responsibilities, this position at other VAR’s could be described as a role with combined responsibilities typical of an Inside Solutions Specialist. The presales engineer will guide customers on how to resolve technical issues related to the technology disciplines where they eventually become a SME in order to demonstrate technical acumen which leads to happy customer outcomes and future sales opportunities. The presales engineer will coach and train AM’s on how to position technology to customers and provide input to AM’s regarding profit margins on the solutions they configure. This is a presales engineer position where you’d work among Configuration Solution Engineers (CSE’s) and Architects as part of the Configuration Engineering & Architecture team. The presales engineer interacts with customers mostly remotely and, on occasion, will travel to meet customers regionally located and attend technical trainings and conferences. Hands-on technical experience and experience supporting federal customers are helpful, but neither are required.

Required Technical Skills: Knowledge is required in an area of business, math, or science (computer, military, mechanical, chemical, electrical, etc.). The ability to problem solve, apply critical thinking, learn new technologies, and pass difficult engineering certifications that may or may not be through proctored examinations are all required.

Strong knowledge in Client & Server Systems and familiarity of one additional group of technologies:

Client & Server Systems: laptops, desktops and servers from Dell, HPE, HPI, Cisco or Lenovo

VDI & Hybrid Datacenter Virtualization: VMware vSphere, VCF, Horizon, Hyper-V, IBM RHEV, XenDesktop

Shared Storage & HCI: block, file, object and SDS from Dell, VMware, Nutanix, Cisco, NetApp, HPE, etc.

Backup & Disaster Recovery: Dell PowerProtect DPS, Cohesity, Rubrik, Commvault, Zerto, Veeam, SRM, etc.

Networking & Security: L2/3 switching/routing, campus versus datacenter switching, segmentation and identity management, firewall and filtering capabilities from Cisco, Palo Alto, Fortinet, Juniper, HPE, etc.

Public Cloud & Container Automation: AWS, Azure, VMC on AWS, Tanzu, IBM Red Hat OpenShift, etc.

Wireless OR Unified Communication OR SD-WAN: Cisco, Avaya, HPE Aruba, Ruckus, VMware, etc.

AI, HPC, Big Data OR Quantum Computing: Dell, HPE, DDN, NVIDIA, Red Hat, IBM, etc.

Required Education/Experience:

1 or more industry-recognized IT certification or IT-related degree (can be in pursuit), i.e. any CompTIA, Cisco CCNA, VMware VCA, HPE ATP, NetApp Associate, AWS Cloud Practitioner, Azure Fundamentals, Dell Proven Professional, IBM Certified Professional, Red Hat Certified Professional, Fortinet NSE 3, etc.

Associates degree or higher or equivalent experience quantified in this role by 18 months of proven success in an IT sales, business development, technical engineering or presales position, or 2 years of completed full-time college education (or more), or a combination of college education and proven success in one of the aforementioned positions.

Requirements:

• Positive team player attitude that is kind and empathetic towards others and enthusiastic in front of customers.
• Highly motivated, self-starter with a dynamic passion for helping people and learning technology.
• Able to problem solve, apply critical thinking and confidently articulate technology solutions to customers.
• Ultra-high attention to detail in order to analyze detailed spreadsheets to create configurations.
• Able to clarify and assimilate information from different sources into a unified communication.
• Extended work hours may be required periodically to complete large or urgent requests.
• While this is primarily an office position, travel could be required up to 15%.

Primary Responsibilities:

Includes but not limited to:

Sterling Computers is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, military status, national origin or any other characteristic protected under federal, state or applicable local law