Senior Manager, Solution Engineering – Customer Solution Validation

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is the global edge-to-cloud company advancing the way people live and work. We help companies connect, protect, analyze, and act on their data and applications wherever they live, from edge to cloud, so they can turn insights into outcomes at the speed required to thrive in today’s complex world.

Job Description:

As a Senior Manager, Solution Engineering – Customer Solution Validation, you will lead a team of engineers responsible for validating networking solutions and customer deployment use cases across multiple product portfolios. You will execute solution validation strategies and roadmaps aligned with organizational and business objectives, drive predictable delivery of committed releases, and establish operational discipline through project planning, risk management, milestone tracking, and execution reviews.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead a team of engineers responsible for validating networking solutions and customer deployment use cases across multiple product portfolios.
• Execute solution validation strategies and roadmaps aligned with organizational and business objectives.
• Drive predictable delivery of committed releases, ensuring quality, scalability, and customer readiness.
• Establish operational discipline through project planning, risk management, milestone tracking, and execution reviews.
• Champion automation-first methodologies to improve test efficiency, coverage, scalability, and engineering productivity.
• Ensure customer use cases are qualified from inception through deployment readiness.

Customer & Solution Focus:

• Develop a deep understanding of customer deployment environments, networking architectures, and operational challenges.
• Partner with Product Management, Architecture, Development, Sales, and Field Engineering teams to ensure solutions align with customer business and technical requirements.
• Drive customer-focused engineering practices that improve adoption, quality, and customer satisfaction.
• Evaluate emerging customer requirements and market trends to influence validation priorities and solution readiness activities.

Organizational Leadership:

• Lead, mentor, and develop a team of technical professionals while fostering a culture of accountability, innovation, collaboration, and continuous improvement.
• Establish goals, performance expectations, and development plans for direct reports.
• Identify and develop technical leaders and subject matter experts within the organization.
• Drive employee engagement, retention, recognition, and career growth initiatives.
• Promote diversity, inclusion, and professional development across the team.

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Partner closely with Directors, Architects, Product Managers, and Engineering leaders to align execution with strategic objectives.
• Facilitate coordination across multiple teams to remove execution barriers and accelerate delivery.
• Communicate progress, risks, dependencies, and mitigation plans to leadership and key stakeholders.
• Support business planning, resource allocation, and prioritization discussions.

Operational Excellence:

• Define and manage key performance indicators (KPIs) and operational metrics.
• Manage resource planning, infrastructure utilization, and project prioritization.
• Optimize engineering investments, test infrastructure, and operational expenses.
• Establish best practices for solution validation, release readiness, and quality assurance.
• Proactively identify and mitigate project and business risks.

Innovation & Technology Leadership:

• Promote innovation through automation, AI-assisted engineering, virtualization, and cloud-native validation methodologies.
• Encourage participation in technical communities, patents, standards bodies, certifications, and industry forums.
• Drive adoption of modern engineering tools, frameworks, and methodologies that improve organizational effectiveness.
• Stay current with networking industry trends, competitive technologies, and emerging customer requirements.

Required Skills & Competencies:

• Proven experience managing high-performing engineering teams.
• Strong ability to motivate, coach, and develop technical professionals.
• Demonstrated success leading complex engineering initiatives and cross-functional programs.
• Excellent organizational, planning, and execution skills.
• Strong stakeholder management and collaboration abilities.
• Ability to translate technical priorities into business outcomes.
• Excellent verbal, written, and presentation skills.
• Strong customer-facing and executive communication capabilities.
• Ability to influence decision-making without direct authority.
• Experience balancing technical priorities, resources, schedules, and business objectives.

Technical Expertise:

• Strong understanding of IP/MPLS Routing, EVPN-VXLAN, Data Center Networking, Service Provider Architectures, Routing Protocols (BGP, OSPF, ISIS), MPLS, Segment Routing, L2VPN, L3VPN, Multicast, NAT, GRE, IPSec and Security technologies, Layer 2 Technologies (LAG, MC-LAG, Virtual Chassis), CLOS and Spine-Leaf Architectures, High Availability and Resiliency Designs, Network Automation Frameworks, Python and API-driven Network Automation, Containerization and Kubernetes.

What you need to bring:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related field. Master's degree preferred.
• 15+ years of experience in networking, telecommunications, or software engineering.
• 5+ years of experience leading and managing technical engineering teams.
• Proven track record delivering networking products, customer solution validations, and release readiness programs.
• Strong expertise in Juniper networking technologies and customer deployment models.
• Experience working across global engineering organizations.
• Familiarity with AI-assisted engineering and automation practices is highly desirable.
• Experience with competitive networking platforms such as Cisco, Arista, Nokia, or equivalent.
• Industry certifications such as JNCIP, JNCIE, CCNP, CCIE, or equivalent are highly desirable.

What We Can Offer You:

• Comprehensive suite of benefits that supports physical, financial, and emotional wellbeing.
• Investment in your career through specific programs catered to helping you reach your career goals.
• Unconditional inclusion and celebration of individual uniqueness.