Solution Engineer - Confluent

International Business Machines Corporation; Chicago (IL); On-site; USD 90,000 - 130,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Global Sales is seeking a Solutions Engineer to partner with Account Executives and act as a technical advisor for customers adopting Confluent technologies. You will surface business needs, design technical solutions, and help customers realize value across data streaming initiatives.

You'll drive proofs of concept, run discovery and whiteboard sessions, and share technical expertise through talks and workshops, strengthening adoption and customer success.

Qualifications

• 1+ year of Solutions Engineering or similar work experience.
• Experience with Event-Driven architecture and data technologies.
• Exposure to Cloud Architecture and deployments.
• Proficient in Java, Python or SQL and capable of certifications.

Responsibilities

• Advance Data Streaming use-cases from concept to Go-Live.
• Lead Technical Proofs of Concept and discovery sessions.
• Deliver technical talks and workshops for customers.
• Guide customers to mature deployment practices with Confluent.

Skills

Solutions Engineering experience

Event-Driven architecture

Data integration & processing

Cloud architecture exposure

Automation, GitOps, Kubernetes

Java, Python or SQL

Technical certifications (Cloud)

Strong presentation skills

Customer stakeholder engagement

Job description

Introduction

At IBM Global Sales, we bring together innovation, collaboration, and expertise to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Working across industries and geographies, you'll partner with colleagues, clients, and partners to co-create solutions that drive digital transformation and lasting impact.Success in Global Sales is built on curiosity, empathy, and collaboration. You'll connect technical understanding with strong people skills, building trusted relationships and shaping solutions that improve business and society. With world-class onboarding, continuous learning, and a supportive culture, IBM offers the tools and opportunities to grow your career. Join us and be part of a global team that's passionate about driving innovation and making a difference.

Your role and responsibilities

Solutions Engineers at Confluent drive not only the early-stage evaluation within the sales process, but also play a crucial role in enabling ongoing value-realization for customers, all while helping them move up the adoption maturity curve. In this role you'll partner with Account Executives to be the key technical advisor in service of the customers. You'll be instrumental in surfacing the customers' stated or implicit Business Needs, and coming up with Technical Designs to best meet these needs. You may find yourself at times facilitating art of the possible discussions and storytelling to inspire customers in adopting new patterns with confidence, and at other times driving creative solutioning to help get past difficult technical roadblocks. Overall, we look upon Solutions Engineers to be a key cog within the Customer Success Team that help foster an environment of sustained success for the customer and incremental adoption of Confluent's Technology.

What You Will Do:

• Help advance new & innovative Data Streaming use-cases from conception to Go-Live

• Execute on and lead Technical Proofs of Concept

• Conduct Discovery & Whiteboard Sessions to develop new use-cases

• Provide Thought Leadership by delivering Technical Talks and Workshops

• Guide customers with hands-on help and best practice to drive operational maturity of their Confluent Deployment

• Analyze Customer Consumption trends and identify Optimization opportunities

• Work closely with Product and Engineering teams, and serve as a key Product advocate across the Customer, Partner and Industry ecosystem

• Forge strong relationships with key customer stakeholders and serve as a dependable partner for them

Required technical and professional expertise

• 1+ years of Solutions Engineering or similar work experience

• Experience with Event-Driven architecture, Data Integration & Processing Techniques, Database & Data Warehouse technologies

• First-Hand exposure to Cloud Architecture, Migrations, Deployment & Application Development

• Experience with Automation, GitOps and Kubernetes

• Proficiency in Java, Python or SQL

• Technical certifications - Cloud Developer/Architect, Data Engineering & Integration

• Clear, consistent demonstration of self-starter behavior, a desire to learn new things and tackle hard technical problems

• Exceptional presentation and communications capabilities.

• Confidence presenting to a highly skilled and experienced audience, ranging from developers to enterprise architects and up to C-level executives

Preferred technical and professional experience

• Experience with Kafka, Apache Flink, stream processing, or real-time analytics platforms.

• Familiarity with value-based selling, MEDDPICC or similar qualification frameworks.

• Experience creating repeatable demos, technical content, playbooks, or enablement material for the broader field organization.

• A track record of mentoring peers and influencing team practices beyond your own accounts.

• Comfort engaging senior customer stakeholders and helping shape larger platform or transformation discussions.

IBM is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, caste, genetics, pregnancy, disability, neurodivergence, age, veteran status, or other characteristics. IBM is also committed to compliance with all fair employment practices regarding citizenship and immigration status.