Senior Sales Engineer

Socket.dev

Santa Clara (CA)

On-site

USD 140,000 - 210,000

Full time

5 days ago

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Job summary

DDN is seeking aSales Engineer in Santa Clara to design high-performance storage for AI/ML, HPC, and real-time analytics. You will translate customer requirements into scalable storage solutions, deliver live demos and POCs, and act as a trusted advisor throughout the sales cycle.

Responsibilities include building BOMs and proposals for complex RFPs, collaborating with product/engineering, and staying current on AI infrastructure trends to guide customers and internal teams.

Qualifications

Bachelor's in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field or equivalent experience.
Experience articulating storage solutions to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Experience designing storage for AI/ML, HPC, and data analytics.

Responsibilities

Architect storage for AI/ML training, HPC, data analytics, and GPU-accelerated workloads.
Create BOMs, system architectures, and technical proposals for RFPs.
Conduct live demos, POCs, and performance benchmarks.
Translate customer requirements into scalable storage solutions.

Skills

Storage architectures

Communication to engineers/execs

Pre-sales / solutions architecture

AI/HPC workloads

Storage protocols

Kubernetes

Education

Bachelor's in CS/Engineering

Equivalent experience

Tools

Lustre

GPFS

Kubernetes

Job description

About DDN

DDN powers the world's most demanding data workloads—from AI research to drug discovery, autonomous vehicles to financial modeling. For over two decades, our massively parallel storage solutions have enabled breakthrough innovations across industries. Join us in building the infrastructure that makes the impossible possible.

The Role

As a Sales Engineer, you'll architect high-performance storage solutions that enable customers to achieve their boldest ambitions. Work across finance, pharmaceuticals, education, and physical AI—designing systems that power real-time trading, accelerate drug discovery, enable groundbreaking research, and fuel autonomous systems.

You'll translate complex customer requirements into elegant technical solutions, demonstrate capabilities through POCs and benchmarks, and serve as a trusted advisor throughout the sales cycle.

What You'll Do

Customer Engagement

Partner with customers to understand their critical data challenges—high-frequency trading, genomics processing, AI model training, or autonomous vehicle sensor fusion

Translate technical requirements into elegant, scalable storage solutions that exceed expectations

Act as trusted technical advisor throughout the sales cycle

Solution Design

Architect storage for AI/ML training, HPC simulations, data analytics, and GPU-accelerated workloads

Design for reliability, resilience, security, and scale—balancing performance with data protection

Create BOMs, system architectures, and technical proposals for complex RFPs

Conduct live demos, POCs, and performance benchmarking

Integrate with GPU clusters, Kubernetes, cloud platforms, and AI frameworks

Innovation & Growth

Stay current on AI infrastructure and storage technology trends

Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams using field insights

Mentor team members and contribute to technical thought leadership

Shape product direction based on customer needs

What You Bring

Technical Foundation (All Levels)

Strong understanding of storage and data architectures: SAN, NAS, object storage, parallel file systems

Knowledge of architectural patterns for reliability, resilience, security, and scale

Understanding of storage and data protocols: S3, POSIX, NFS, SMB

Familiarity with network protocols: TCP/IP, InfiniBand, RDMA

Curiosity about massively parallel technologies (Lustre, GPFS, Exascaler)

Aptitude for AI workloads and how storage enables AI innovation

Ability to communicate technical concepts to both engineers and executives

Entry Level (0-3 years)

Bachelor's in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)

Exposure to storage/systems through coursework, internships, or projects

Strong analytical and problem-solving skills

Customer-facing communication skills

Experienced (3+ years)

3-8+ years in pre-sales, solutions architecture, or technical consulting

Proven track record designing storage/infrastructure solutions

Hands-on experience with enterprise storage systems

Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, HPC, or high-performance workloads (preferred)

Success managing complex technical sales cycles

What Sets You Apart

Genuine curiosity about AI and its impact across industries

Ownership mindset—you solve problems until they're solved

Ability to translate technical complexity into business value

Thrive in fast-evolving technology environments

Collaborative team player with integrity and empathy

Diverse Backgrounds Welcome:

Whether you're coming from enterprise storage vendors (Weka, VAST, NetApp, Pure), research computing (university HPC, national labs), or infrastructure roles (cloud architects, platform engineers), your experience translates to this role. Technical depth + customer focus matter more than your starting point.

Why DDN

Impact