Solution Engineer - Confluent

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

Job summary

IBM Global Sales is seeking a Solutions Engineer to bridge technical insights with client needs, driving data streaming initiatives from concept to go-live. You will collaborate with Account Executives to serve as the technical advisor, surfacing business needs and crafting designs that meet them.

You will facilitate discovery sessions, deliver workshops, and guide customers through hands-on deployments, enabling value realization and platform adoption across the customer ecosystem.

Qualifications

• Minimum 1+ year of Solutions Engineering or similar work experience.
• Experience with Event-Driven architecture and Data Integration & Processing 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 in Cloud Development/Architecture and Data Eng. & Integration.
• Demonstrated self-starter attitude and willingness to learn complex problems.
• Excellent presentation and communication skills.
• Confidence presenting to developers, enterprise architects and executives.

Responsibilities

• Advance new and innovative Data Streaming use-cases from conception to Go-Live.
• Lead Technical Proofs of Concept and pilot projects.
• Conduct discovery and whiteboard sessions to design new use-cases.
• Deliver technical talks and workshops to share knowledge.
• Guide customers with hands-on help and best practices to mature deployments.
• Analyze customer consumption trends to identify optimization opportunities.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering, acting as a product advocate across partners and customers.
• Build strong relationships with customer stakeholders and act as a trusted partner.

Skills

Communication

Self-starter

Problem solving

Public speaking

Mentoring

Java

Python

SQL

Education

Technical certifications - Cloud Developer/Architect

Tools

Kubernetes

GitOps

Kafka

Apache Flink

Data integration & processing tech

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.

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.