Job Summary:
The Sales Engineer provides technical sales support to the national sales team across both direct and channel business. This role leads the technical side of the sales process, from discovery and solution design through evaluation, proof of concept, and close. The ideal candidate brings a background in datacenter networking, campus networking, or retail network design and sales, and can translate customer requirements into credible, well-architected solutions. Hybrid position with up to three days in the office when not traveling. Travel up to 75% within the geographical region.
Candidates must be located in the Bay Area.
Essential Duties and Responsibilities:
- Serve as the primary technical resource for the field sales force and channel partners.
- Gather customer requirements and design technical solutions for datacenter, campus, and distributed retail network environments.
- Present solutions, architectures, and products to both business and technical audiences.
- Own and manage the technology evaluation stage of the sales process, including proof-of-concept scoping, setup, deployment, and success criteria.
- Deliver product and technology demonstrations.
- Act as a trusted technical advisor and product advocate for our products and solutions.
- Position products and technology clearly against customer needs and competing solutions.
- Identify and resolve technical issues on assigned accounts to ensure customer satisfaction through every stage of the sales cycle.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with customers, partners, and internal teams throughout the sales cycle.
- Respond to the technical and functional elements of RFIs and RFPs.
- Take the technical lead on customer certification and qualification processes and serve as the interface between technical customers and ATI product line management and engineering.
- Relay customer and market feedback to product management and engineering to inform the roadmap.
Experience, Skills & Abilities:
**Required**
- 5+ years of Sales Engineer, Systems Engineer, or network architect experience, with hands-on design and/or pre-sales experience in at least one of the following:
- Datacenter networking (e.g., leaf-spine/Clos fabrics, VXLAN/EVPN, high-speed Ethernet, data center interconnect, automation)
- Campus networking (e.g., wired and wireless LAN, access/distribution/core design, NAC, segmentation, network management)
- Retail or distributed-site networking (e.g., multi-site and branch design, SD-WAN, in-store Wi-Fi, POS/IoT connectivity, PCI-aware network design)
- Strong working knowledge of enterprise data networking, including L2/L3 switching and routing (BGP, OSPF), VLANs, QoS, and network management and monitoring.
- Working knowledge of network security fundamentals and wireless (WLAN) technologies.
- Ability to perform product and technology demonstrations, including proof-of-concept setup and deployment.
- Excellent communication and technical presentation skills, with the ability to engage both executive and engineering audiences.
- Account management, business development, and sales process knowledge.
- Ability to respond to the functional and technical elements of RFIs/RFPs.
- Ability to maintain a professional demeanor in stressful situations.
- Ability to interact positively and productively across functions within the organization.
- Ability and willingness to make timely decisions; exhibit sound and accurate judgment; support and explain reasoning for decisions; and include appropriate people in the decision-making process.
- Ability to manage shifting priorities and consistently meet commitments and deadlines.
**Preferred**
- Experience selling through channel partners, distributors, and resellers.
- Experience with SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud), including deployment, configuration, or customer-facing design and positioning of SONiC-based solutions.
- Experience with network automation and programmability (e.g., Python, Ansible, APIs).
- Familiarity with storage networking, physical security, or IoT/edge connectivity.
- Experience in the Federal market.
Education / Training:
- BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, IT, or a related discipline (or equivalent practical experience).
- Networking, wireless, and security certifications preferred (e.g., CCNA/CCNP, JNCIP, ACMP/ACMX, CWNA/CWNP, Security+/CISSP).
Skills Required
- 5+ years of Sales Engineer, Systems Engineer, or network architect experience
- Hands-on design or presales experience in datacenter, campus, or retail/distributed-site networking
- Strong knowledge of enterprise data networking, including switching, routing, BGP, OSPF, VLANs, QoS, and network management
- Working knowledge of network security fundamentals and WLAN technologies
- Ability to perform product and technology demonstrations and deploy proofs of concept
- Excellent communication and technical presentation skills
- Account management, business development, and sales process knowledge
- Ability to respond to technical and functional RFI/RFP requirements
- Ability to manage shifting priorities and meet commitments and deadlines
- Located in the Bay Area
- Willingness to travel up to 75% within the geographical region
- Experience selling through channel partners, distributors, and resellers
- Experience with SONiC deployment, configuration, or customer-facing design and positioning
- Experience with network automation and programmability, including Python, Ansible, or APIs
- Familiarity with storage networking, physical security, or IoT/edge connectivity
- Experience in the Federal market
- BS in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, IT, or related discipline, or equivalent practical experience
- Networking, wireless, or security certifications such as CCNA/CCNP, JNCIP, ACMP/ACMX, CWNA/CWNP, Security+, or CISSP
What We Do
Our world is increasing in complexity. Organizations are changing at an ever-increasing rate. Businesses face an uphill battle to adapt to change and to stay ahead of the competition. At the same time, our cities are increasingly becoming more populated; and with this growth, issues such as demand on resources and public safety become a key focus for government and civic leaders. Today, more than any other time, you need a technology partner that has both the vision and the capability to take your network communications to where you need them to be. Allied Telesis has been supplying network communications solutions for over 30 years. Today we are engaged in some of the most advanced and innovative next-generation network research, focusing efforts on development and production of more intelligent, autonomously controlled and managed systems that will be required to meet the demands of a world of Internet Things and smarter everything. The capabilities and performance of next-generation networks will be defined by the software that configures, secures, manages and automates the infrastructure. Our R&D investments are putting us on the main stage in the exploding era of IoT. As cloud computing uses servers, applications and other resources linked via a network, the infrastructure of that network and the ability to autonomously discover, manage, troubleshoot and resolve network issues will become fundamental to network operations. We also take advantage of our position as a network specialist to provide software solutions needed for network administration. These range from administration and monitoring of network equipment to authentication of connected devices and network status analysis. Our world-class global professional services organization offers unsurpassed support together with network design recommendations, project consultation, staging services and post-installation support.
