Job Summary

We are seeking a dynamic and strategic Principal Architect in Germany to join our EMEA team, as a thought leader and trusted advisor for NetApp’s strategy, technology focus areas, and customer imperatives – both within NetApp and across our partner and customer ecosystems.

Principal Architects are experts at positioning NetApp’s Intelligent Data Infrastructure business technology strategy into each of the identified customer-driven imperatives where our portfolio is differentiated and solves their challenges with high residual value. They are focused on Data Infrastructure Modernization, Artificial Intelligence, Cloud Transformation, and Cyber Resiliency.

In this role, you will act as the tip of the spear, opening up net-new opportunities at new logos and expanding the footprint at existing accounts, focused on establishing NetApp’s relevance with new buying centers, establishing NetApp’s right to a seat at the table, and opening the door to NetApp sellers to cultivate the deal through to close.

The ideal candidate brings a strong background in sales, customer engagement, and product innovation, with a proven ability to think strategically and drive cross-functional initiatives. This position will report to the Director of Principal Architects, EMEA.

Key Responsibilities

• Leads initial conversation w/ customers & prospects at EBCs, Sales Meetings, QBRs, and more as required to establish NetApp’s vision and relevance/right to a "seat at the table” in each of the target workload/solution pillars via relatable customer value and mapped to their imperatives, in conjunction with account teams.
• Builds and maintains C-suite, line of business and decision maker relationships around net-new footprint/workloads, or with new logos.
• Operates early in the sales cycle, and works closely with customer domain architects, executives, and business stakeholders to develop initial application & technology architecture concepts to guide investments.
• Develops the technical win plan for each opportunity that they generate, setting out a clear and recommended path for the account team to follow to develop the deal thru to close.
• Applies local area/region/district knowledge to customize target workload sales approaches, and accelerates local adoption of time-sensitive corporate-identified sales strategies aligned with customer imperatives.
• Accountable for initial envisioning of solution and application strategies, roadmaps, and conceptual reference architectures for a customer imperative, focused on achieving long term business goals.
• Collaborates with NetApp account or service managers early in the sales cycle on the implications of respective architectures on the broader customer environment.
• Develops and leads virtual cross-functional Business Solution Area teams leading best practices and strategy for one or more target workloads.
• Works at the area, region, or district level (as appropriate) to capture Win/Loss information related to each of the four customer imperatives to identify key learnings for continuous improvement.
• Consolidates Product Feature Enhancement requests aligned with customer imperatives into Solutions Management.
• Works with sales leadership (Germany Area VP, Regional Directors, District Managers) to jointly identify key target accounts/prospects.
• Focused on customers in the Strategics, Enterprise, and Public Sector market segments.

Qualifications

• 10+ years leading or developing Information Technology projects with a concentration on Application, Cloud, Infrastructure or Storage Architectures.
• 2+ years of sales experience, or experience as the primary decision maker as a customer for infrastructure and/or cloud solutions.
• Degree in Computer Science, Computer/Software Eng., or MIS preferred, but not required
• 5+ years of relevant architecture experience or certifications, with knowledge of Artificial Intelligence and/or Cyber Resiliency is an advantage.
• 5+ years of DevOps, systems integration and/or implementation experience
• Experience in a broad range of Infrastructure (Storage, Compute and Network) as well as cloud.