Principal Presales, Systems Engineer

We are seeking a Principal Presales, Systems Engineer to join our team. As a trusted technical advisor, you will serve customers, partners, and account teams throughout the sales lifecycle. Your primary responsibility will be to design, architect, validate, and position data center, WAN, cloud, AI infrastructure, and open networking solutions that address complex customer challenges and business objectives.

Responsibilities:

• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers, partners, and account teams throughout the sales lifecycle.
• Partner with sales teams to understand customer business and technical requirements, develop account strategies, and identify opportunities to drive business outcomes.
• Design, architect, validate, and position data center, WAN, cloud, AI infrastructure, and open networking solutions that address complex customer challenges and business objectives.
• Lead technical discovery sessions, architecture workshops, executive presentations, product demonstrations, and proof-of-concept (PoC) engagements.
• Develop solution architectures, implementation strategies, migration plans, and engineering bills of materials (BOMs) for enterprise, cloud provider, and service provider environments.
• Own and deliver technical responses for RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs, ensuring accurate, competitive, and compelling proposals.
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with customer stakeholders, including engineers, architects, technical decision-makers, executives, and industry partners.
• Advise customers on data center modernization, AI networking architectures, cloud connectivity, WAN transformation, network automation, and open networking adoption, including disaggregated networking and SONiC-based solutions.
• Collaborate with Product Management, Engineering, Customer Success, and strategic partners to advocate for customer requirements, provide market intelligence, influence product strategy, and drive successful customer outcomes.
• Maintain expertise in industry trends, emerging technologies, and competitive solutions while sharing knowledge through customer enablement, technical presentations, mentorship, and continuous professional development.

Education & Experience:

• 10+ years of experience in technical pre-sales, Systems Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Network Engineering, Consulting, or related customer-facing technical roles.
• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, or a related field, or equivalent industry experience.
• Proven experience designing, architecting, and delivering large-scale Data Center, WAN, Cloud, AI Infrastructure, and Service Provider networking solutions.
• Deep expertise in modern data center architectures, including EVPN/VXLAN, spine-leaf and Clos fabrics, underlay/overlay networking, Data Center Interconnect (DCI), and Ethernet fabric technologies.
• Strong understanding of routing and transport technologies, including BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, MPLS, Segment Routing (SR-MPLS/SRv6), Traffic Engineering, and Layer 2/Layer 3 VPN services.
• Experience designing and implementing enterprise, cloud, and service provider WAN architectures, network modernization initiatives, and cloud connectivity solutions.
• Experience supporting AI, high-performance computing (HPC), cloud, and large-scale distributed application environments.
• Strong technical expertise across routing, switching, and network infrastructure technologies gained through pre-sales, operational, engineering, or consulting experience.
• Demonstrated ability to engage technical and business stakeholders, including architects, engineers, decision-makers, and executive leadership through presentations, workshops, and consultative selling engagements.
• Experience developing technical responses for RFPs, RFIs, and RFQs and leading solution validation through demonstrations, workshops, and proof-of-concept engagements.
• Hands-on experience with HPE Networking, Juniper, or other leading networking platforms and management solutions, including familiarity with open networking concepts, network disaggregation, or SONiC-based solutions.
• Experience positioning, selling, or supporting data center switching solutions based on SONiC, Linux-based network operating systems, or open networking ecosystems is highly desirable.

What We Would Love You to Have:

• Experience with SONiC (Software for Open Networking in the Cloud), open networking architectures, network disaggregation, and merchant silicon-based networking platforms.
• Experience supporting hyperscale, cloud provider, AI fabric, large-scale data center, or service provider environments.
• Experience positioning or supporting SONiC-based switching solutions, Linux-based network operating systems, or open networking ecosystems.
• Experience with public cloud networking, automation, and cloud-native technologies, including AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, VMware, and OpenStack.
• Industry certifications such as JNCIP, JNCIE, CCNP, CCIE, AWS, Azure, GCP, or equivalent technical certifications.

What Makes You a Phenomenal Fit:

• A customer-first mindset with a passion for solving complex technical and business challenges.
• Strong communication, presentation, and relationship-building skills with the ability to influence both technical and executive audiences.
• Curiosity, adaptability, and a commitment to continuous learning in a rapidly evolving technology landscape.
• A collaborative approach with the ability to work effectively across sales, engineering, product, and partner organizations while managing competing priorities in a dynamic environment.
• An advocate for HPE's culture and values who thrives in customer-facing roles and is willing to travel as needed to support business and customer objectives.

What We Can Offer You:

• Health & Wellbeing: comprehensive suite of benefits that supports physical, financial, and emotional wellbeing.
• Personal & Professional Development: specific programs catered to helping you reach any career goals you have.
• Unconditional Inclusion: celebrating individual uniqueness, valuing varied backgrounds, and succeeding here.