Presales Solution Architect - Next Generation Datacentre

A fantastic opportunity has arisen for a VMware Certified Presales Solution Architect - Next Generation Datacentre in our client’s dynamic and rapidly expanding Consultancy Practice.
Our client is a leading independent technology partner, trusted by large corporate and Public Sector organisations to source, transform and manage their technology infrastructure, to deliver digital transformation. In the current difficult market our client’s financial results have been strong, they are in growth mode and 2021 is set to be a year of continued progress for them. They are a people-centric company and invest in their people through continued training and certification. The culture is a ‘can do’ one and provides great opportunity for career progression.
As the Next Generation Datacentre Pre-Sales Architect, you will shape customer pre-sales opportunities and articulate business and technical strategy to customers and internal clients. As a customer facing role, you’ll need proven skills in a customer facing position, and will be leading the pre-sales engagement, shaping the overall proposition and assuring complex solutions to Corporate or Public Sector organisations.
The Role
• You will be responsible for providing Next Generation Datacentre technology expertise to propose infrastructure solutions that meet the client’s business requirements and drive innovation within their overall IT strategy.
• You will be VMware Certified as a minimum to VCP with Server Virtualisation and SDDC competencies as a minimum and ideally Network Virtualisation competencies; VCP7-CMA / VCP6-DC Certification is preferable
• You will have a strong understanding of core VMware infrastructure including vSphere, vRealize Suite (including vRA and vRealize Orchestrator), SRM, VSAN, NSX and Virtual Hardware
• You will have a strong understanding of datacentre technologies such as storage, data protection and platform (e.g. CI/HCI and Unix) solutions
• Your solutions will always consider security as a core principle
• You will work with customer stakeholders, IT Managers, Directors, and IT professionals during the whole pre-sales cycle, in addition to consulting with clients during their decision making process to articulate technical strategy and business impact for the company and customer.

Role Responsibility
• Primarily responsible for influencing and shaping Next Generation Datacentre solutions during pre-sales engagements. To take advantage of this opportunity you will need to be a highly technical individual with solid hands on capability as a Technical Designer, Solution Lead or Architect with the ability to transform and enhance client vision and outcomes into a winning solution.
• Maintaining an in-depth delivery understanding of private and public cloud architectures, with specific focus on solutions based around the VMware portfolio but also a good understanding of storage, data protection and platform (e.g. CI/HCI, Unix etc.) technologies.
• Driving the adoption of design principles and best practices/standards for the implementation of advanced VMware and Next Generation Datacentre solutions
• Leading teams of VMware and Next Generation Datacentre professionals on larger and strategically significant solution opportunities
• Working closely with customers to ensure you understand their Next Generation Datacentre (NGDC) requirements and position solutions best suited to deliver these requirements including portability, containerisation, automation, migration, SDDC and hyper-scaler adoption
• Assisting the NGDC Practice and Solution lead in the development and creation of blueprints, customer whitepapers and case studies
• Responsibility for the quality of all technical deliverables produced for the VMware technology area
• Leading customer discussions and workshops around technical adoption, customer strategy and 'blue sky thinking'
• Working with the NGDC Practice Lead and Solution Lead in managing and building important relationships directly with key partners and vendors, such as VMWare.

The Ideal Candidate
• An inspirational presenter and speaker that can take customers on a journey from problem statement to a workable solution that consider both the technical/architectural and commercial (e.g. licensing/ELA) art of the possible
• Demonstrable experience of successfully operating in the pre-sale’s environment in a Service or Consultancy organisation for Enterprise-scale customer organisations in RFI, RFP or bid responses
• Demonstrates clear leadership. Communicates effectively at all levels to both technical and nontechnical audiences.
• 5+ years of previous Hands on Delivery / Implementation related work around VMware solutions
• 3+ years of recent architecture solution design and technical leadership experience
• 3+ years of previous leadership experience
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field - or very significant experience required
• An understanding of cloud networking security concepts, such as IP subnets, security groups, NACLs, routing, firewalls.
• Strong understanding of application portability, containerisation, automation, migration, SDDC and hyper-scaler adoption - experience in point technologies (e.g. Ansible, Terraform etc.) would also be of use