Solutions Engineer

Confluent - Tallahassee, FL

Full-time - Mid Level

Tallahassee, FL

Publishing Industries

About the position

Confluent Solutions Engineers (Pre-Sales) play a pivotal role in the technical evaluation stage of the sales process, making them essential to customer success as real-time data streams gain importance in modern enterprises. In this position, you will collaborate closely with account representatives to serve as the technical advisor on the sales team. This role requires a strong partnership with product management and engineering teams, acting as a vital product advocate in front of prospects, customers, and the broader Kafka and Data Streaming communities. As a trusted advisor, you will assist Confluent customers in the technical design and development of their end-to-end solutions, staying informed about the current state and future roadmap of Kafka in open source. You will also identify known issues and communicate upcoming fixes or workarounds to customers. Your responsibilities will include clearly articulating Confluent's technical and product positioning to a diverse range of business and technical stakeholders, forging strong relationships throughout the sales cycle and beyond. This role demands exceptional presentation and communication skills, as you will be presenting to highly skilled audiences, including enterprise architects and C-level executives. You will need to demonstrate self-starter behavior and a desire to learn new technologies and tackle complex technical challenges. Proficiency in programming languages such as Java, Python, or SQL, along with experience in building or running cloud applications, is essential. Additionally, you will be expected to have experience in building and operating large-scale systems, which will be critical in supporting customer needs and driving successful outcomes.

Responsibilities

• Drive the technical evaluation stage of the sales process.
• Partner with account representatives as the technical advisor on the sales team.
• Work closely with product management and engineering teams.
• Serve as a product advocate in front of prospects and customers.
• Assist customers in the technical design and development of their end-to-end solutions.
• Articulate Confluent's technical and product positioning to various stakeholders.
• Forge strong relationships with stakeholders throughout the sales cycle.
• Present confidently to highly skilled technical and business audiences.
• Demonstrate self-starter behavior and a desire to learn new technologies.
• Identify known issues and inform customers of upcoming fixes or workarounds.

Requirements

• Experience with distributed systems and infrastructure software like databases, message queues, or Big Data products.
• Confidence presenting to customers, including enterprise architects and C-level executives.
• Proficiency in Java, Python, or SQL.
• Experience building or running cloud applications.
• Exceptional presentation and communication capabilities.
• Experience building and operating large-scale systems.
• Previous sales engineering work experience.
• Experience building solutions with Apache Kafka.
• Work experience with data integration or application architecture.
• Understanding of systems operations concepts (disk, network, operating systems, etc).
• Technical certifications such as a CS degree or cloud developer/architect/administrator.

Nice-to-haves

• Confluent Certified Developer or Confluent Certified Administrator.
• Knowledge of Kubernetes operations and cloud-based distributed computing.

Benefits

• Competitive pay and benefits in line with industry standards.
• Annual estimated salary of $132,400 - $155,610.
• Competitive equity package.
• Eligibility for additional commission and/or bonus pay.