Senior Principal Solutions Architect

Rocket Software; United States; Hybrid; USD 150,000 - 210,000; Full time

Job summary

Rocket Software is seeking a Senior Principal Solutions Architect – Vertica to lead adoption of Vertica analytics across enterprise data environments. You will act as a trusted advisor, shaping data strategies, and driving high-impact POCs that demonstrate performance, scalability, and cost efficiency.

You will partner with Sales, Product, Engineering and ecosystem partners to design architectures, lead benchmarks, and guide multi-stakeholder engagement from discovery to close.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in solutions architecture, presales, or technical consulting roles.
• Minimum 3–5 years in a customer-facing presales role, preferably in Data Warehouse or Data Lake analytics.
• Proven experience with columnar, MPP, or OLAP databases, such as: Vertica, Teradata, Greenplum, ClickHouse, or equivalent.

Responsibilities

• Act as a trusted technical advisor to enterprise customers across data warehousing and analytics.
• Lead end-to-end POC and performance benchmark designs and executions.
• Collaborate with Sales to develop account strategies and winning narratives.
• Design Vertica-based architectures across on-prem, hybrid, and cloud.
• Mentor Sales Engineers and guide complex multi-stakeholder sales cycles.
• Align with cloud providers and ecosystem partners for joint solutions.

Skills

Solutions architecture

Presales

Technical consulting

SQL

Python

Shell scripting

Data modeling

ETL/ELT

Cloud platforms

Tools

Vertica

Teradata

Greenplum

ClickHouse

Job description

It's fun to work in a company where people truly BELIEVE in what they're doing! Job Description Summary: The Senior Principal Solutions Architect – Vertica is a highly experienced technical leader responsible for driving adoption of Rocket Software ’s Vertica analytics platform across complex, data intensive enterprise environments. Operating at the intersection of deep analytical database expertise, presales execution, and business value storytelling, this role partners with Sales, Product, Engineering, and ecosystem partners to design and position differentiated, high performance analytical solutions. As a trusted advisor to customers and a senior leader within Rocket, the Solutions Architect influences customer data strategies, leads high impact proof of concepts, and demonstrates how Vertica delivers exceptional performance, scalability, and cost efficiency within modern data architectures. This role has broad impact across both customer outcomes and internal technical strategy, helping define best practices, shape technical sales approaches, and elevate the Solutions Architecture function.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Customer Engagement & Solution Design

Act as a trusted technical advisor to enterprise customers, translating business challenges into scalable Vertica-based analytical architectures Lead discussions across data warehousing, data lake analytics, and hybrid/multi-cloud environments Influence customer data platform and modernization strategies , positioning Vertica as the core analytical engine Engage effectively with stakeholders ranging from hands-on engineers to senior executives

Proof of Concept & Benchmark Leadership

Own the end-to-end design and execution of competitive proof-of-concepts (POCs) and performance benchmarks under tight sales timelines Translate technical outcomes (query performance, compression, concurrency) into compelling business value (cost reduction, speed, ROI) Design realistic data models, workloads, and benchmarking frameworks aligned to customer use cases Clearly differentiate Vertica from alternative MPP and cloud data warehouse solutions

Technical Sales Leadership

Lead the technical strategy for new business, expansion, and strategic opportunities Partner closely with Sales to develop account strategies, deal plans, and winning technical narratives Guide and mentor Sales Engineers, ensuring high-quality demos and solution validation Drive complex, multi-stakeholder technical sales cycles from discovery through close

Data Architecture & Modern Data Stack Integration

Design solutions integrating Vertica across modern ecosystems, including: Ingestion: Kafka, Spark, streaming pipelines Storage: S3, HDFS, object storage Consumption: Tableau, Power BI, Looker, and other BI platforms Provide guidance on: Data modelling and schema design Data governance, quality, and cleansing practices ETL/ELT pipeline architecture and performance optimisation

Hands-on Technical Execution

Write and optimise complex analytical SQL queries on large-scale datasets Develop scripts (Python, shell) to support automation, data loading, and demo environments Deploy and configure Vertica environments across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud platforms Troubleshoot performance issues and optimise query execution in real-time scenarios

Ecosystem & Partner Collaboration

Work closely with cloud providers (AWS, Azure, GCP), GSIs, VARs, and ISVs to deliver joint solutions Support co-sell opportunities and align on shared value propositions Contribute to partner enablement and field readiness

Thought Leadership & Organisational Impact

Define and promote best practices, architectural patterns, and reusable assets across the Solutions Architecture community Influence technical sales strategy, including POC methodologies and competitive positioning frameworks Mentor and coach other Solutions Architects and Sales Engineers Act as a technical thought leader , representing Rocket in key customer and industry engagements Contribute to innovation in areas such as AI/ML integration, advanced analytics, and emerging data architectures

Experience and Qualifications

Core Experience

10+ years of experience in solutions architecture, presales, or technical consulting roles Minimum 3–5 years in a customer-facing presales role , preferably in Data Warehouse or Data Lake analytics Proven experience with columnar, MPP, or OLAP databases , such as: Vertica, Teradata, Greenplum, ClickHouse, or equivalent

Technical Expertise

Strong proficiency in: ANSI SQL and major SQL dialects (PL/SQL, T-SQL, etc.) Query optimisation and performance tuning Data modelling and warehouse design (star/snowflake schemas) ETL/ELT pipeline development and orchestration Data governance, data quality, and data cleansing practices Experience working with: Streaming and ingestion frameworks: Kafka, Spark Data lake and storage platforms: S3, HDFS BI and visualisation tools: Tableau, Looker, Power BI Cloud & Infrastructure Expertise Strong working knowledge of cloud and hybrid environments , including AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform Experience designing and deploying analytical workloads across distributed infrastructure

Programming & Automation

Advanced SQL skills for analytical workloads Proficiency with Python and/or shell scripting for automation and environment setup Experience building and maintaining POC/demo environments

Advanced & Emerging Capabilities

Working knowledge of: AI/ML integrations within data platforms Data wrangling and transformation techniques Model Context Protocol (MCP) and modern LLM-driven workflows

Sales & Consulting Skills

Strong presentation, storytelling, and consultative selling capabilities Ability to translate technical capabilities into clear, compelling business value Demonstrated success in POC-led and performance-driven sales cycles Partner & Ecosystem Experience

Partner & Ecosystem Experience

Experience collaborating with: Infrastructure vendors Global System Integrators (GSIs) Value-Added Resellers (VARs