Senior Principal Solutions Architect

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Job Description Summary:

The Senior Principal Solutions Architect – Vertica is a highly experienced technical leader responsible for driving adoption of Rocket Software’s Vertica analytics platform across complex, data intensive enterprise environments.
Operating at the intersection of deep analytical database expertise, presales execution, and business value storytelling, this role partners with Sales, Product, Engineering, and ecosystem partners to design and position differentiated, high performance analytical solutions.
As a trusted advisor to customers and a senior leader within Rocket, the Solutions Architect influences customer data strategies, leads high impact proof of concepts, and demonstrates how Vertica delivers exceptional performance, scalability, and cost efficiency within modern data architectures.
This role has broad impact across both customer outcomes and internal technical strategy, helping define best practices, shape technical sales approaches, and elevate the Solutions Architecture function.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Customer Engagement & Solution Design

• Act as a trusted technical advisor to enterprise customers, translating business challenges into scalable Vertica-based analytical architectures
• Lead discussions across data warehousing, data lake analytics, and hybrid/multi-cloud environments
• Influence customer data platform and modernization strategies, positioning Vertica as the core analytical engine
• Engage effectively with stakeholders ranging from hands-on engineers to senior executives

Proof of Concept & Benchmark Leadership

• Own the end-to-end design and execution of competitive proof-of-concepts (POCs) and performance benchmarks under tight sales timelines
• Translate technical outcomes (query performance, compression, concurrency) into compelling business value (cost reduction, speed, ROI)
• Design realistic data models, workloads, and benchmarking frameworks aligned to customer use cases
• Clearly differentiate Vertica from alternative MPP and cloud data warehouse solutions

Technical Sales Leadership

• Lead the technical strategy for new business, expansion, and strategic opportunities
• Partner closely with Sales to develop account strategies, deal plans, and winning technical narratives
• Guide and mentor Sales Engineers, ensuring high-quality demos and solution validation
• Drive complex, multi-stakeholder technical sales cycles from discovery through close

Data Architecture & Modern Data Stack Integration

• Design solutions integrating Vertica across modern ecosystems, including:
  • Ingestion: Kafka, Spark, streaming pipelines
  • Storage: S3, HDFS, object storage
  • Consumption: Tableau, Power BI, Looker, and other BI platforms
• Provide guidance on:
  • Data modelling and schema design
  • Data governance, quality, and cleansing practices
  • ETL/ELT pipeline architecture and performance optimisation

Hands-on Technical Execution

• Write and optimise complex analytical SQL queries on large-scale datasets
• Develop scripts (Python, shell) to support automation, data loading, and demo environments
• Deploy and configure Vertica environments across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud platforms
• Troubleshoot performance issues and optimise query execution in real-time scenarios

Ecosystem & Partner Collaboration

• Work closely with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), GSIs, VARs, and ISVs to deliver joint solutions
• Support co-sell opportunities and align on shared value propositions
• Contribute to partner enablement and field readiness

Thought Leadership & Organisational Impact

• Define and promote best practices, architectural patterns, and reusable assets across the Solutions Architecture community
• Influence technical sales strategy, including POC methodologies and competitive positioning frameworks
• Mentor and coach other Solutions Architects and Sales Engineers
• Act as a technical thought leader, representing Rocket in key customer and industry engagements
• Contribute to innovation in areas such as AI/ML integration, advanced analytics, and emerging data architectures

Experience and Qualifications

Core Experience

• 10+ years of experience in solutions architecture, presales, or technical consulting roles
• Minimum 3–5 years in a customer-facing presales role, preferably in Data Warehouse or Data Lake analytics
• Proven experience with columnar, MPP, or OLAP databases, such as:
  • Vertica, Teradata, Greenplum, ClickHouse, or equivalent

Technical Expertise

Strong proficiency in:

• ANSI SQL and major SQL dialects (PL/SQL, T-SQL, etc.)
• Query optimisation and performance tuning
• Data modelling and warehouse design (star/snowflake schemas)
• ETL/ELT pipeline development and orchestration
• Data governance, data quality, and data cleansing practices

Experience working with:

• Streaming and ingestion frameworks: Kafka, Spark
• Data lake and storage platforms: S3, HDFS
• BI and visualisation tools: Tableau, Looker, Power BI

Cloud & Infrastructure Expertise

• Strong working knowledge of cloud and hybrid environments, including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform
• Experience designing and deploying analytical workloads across distributed infrastructure

Programming & Automation

• Advanced SQL skills for analytical workloads
• Proficiency with Python and/or shell scripting for automation and environment setup
• Experience building and maintaining POC/demo environments

Advanced & Emerging Capabilities

• Working knowledge of:
  • AI/ML integrations within data platforms
  • Data wrangling and transformation techniques
  • Model Context Protocol (MCP) and modern LLM-driven workflows

Sales & Consulting Skills

• Strong presentation, storytelling, and consultative selling capabilities
• Ability to translate technical capabilities into clear, compelling business value
• Demonstrated success in POC-led and performance-driven sales cycles

Partner & Ecosystem Experience

• Experience collaborating with:
  • Infrastructure vendors
  • Global System Integrators (GSIs)
  • Value-Added Resellers (VARs)
• Ability to co-sell and align joint value propositions across partner ecosystems

Key Competencies

• Deep analytical thinking and problem-solving
• Executive communication and influence
• Customer-centric mindset and business acumen
• Innovation and creative solution design
• Ability to thrive in fast-paced, high-pressure presales environments

Information Security

Information security is everyone’s responsibility. A fundamental principle at Rocket Software is that all individuals are responsible for protecting company information and IT resources in line with their role.

Diversity, Inclusion & Equity

At Rocket Software, we are committed to creating an inclusive workplace where every employee can thrive and bring their full self to work.

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Rocket Software Inc. is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, disability, age, or veteran status. Rocket Software Inc. is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.

As part of our commitment to a safe and trustworthy workplace, we include background and reference checks in our hiring process.

Rocket is committed to working with and providing reasonable accommodation to individuals with physical and mental disabilities.  If you need special assistance or an accommodation while seeking employment, please call: 781-577-4321 or send an email to [email protected].  We will make a determination on your request for reasonable accommodation on a case-by-case basis.

If you like wild growth and working with happy, enthusiastic over-achievers, you'll enjoy your career with us!