Staff Solution Sales Engineer - Confluent

IBM; San Diego (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Job summary

IBM Global Sales is seeking Staff Solution Sales Engineers to partner with Account Executives as the technical advisor for customers. You’ll surface business needs, design technical solutions, and guide customers through adoption patterns, ensuring successful outcomes and incremental value realization across deployments.

You will work with cross-functional teams to deliver compelling technical storytelling, enable ongoing value, and drive adoption maturity while building trusted relationships

Qualifications

• Extensive experience as a Solutions Engineer or similar.
• Experience with Event-Driven architecture and data processing technologies.
• Hands-on exposure to Cloud Architecture, Migrations, Deployment and App Development.
• Experience with Automation, GitOps and Kubernetes.
• Proficiency in Java, Python or SQL.
• Technical certifications - Cloud Developer/Architect, Data Engineering & Integrations.
• Clear, consistent self-starter with a passion to learn and solve hard problems.
• Exceptional presentation and communications capabilities, with confidence presenting to diverse audiences.

Responsibilities

• Lead technical proofs of concept from conception to Go-Live.
• Conduct discovery and whiteboard sessions to develop new use-cases.
• Provide thought leadership through technical talks and workshops.
• Guide customers with hands-on help to mature deployment practices.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to advocate for customer needs.

Skills

Solutions Engineering

Event-Driven

Data Integration

Cloud Architecture

Kubernetes

Java/Python/SQL

Cloud Certifications

Communication Skills

Tools

GitOps

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

Staff Solution Sales 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-LiveExecute on and lead Technical Proofs of Concept
• Conduct Discovery & Whiteboard Sessions to develop new use-casesProvide 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 opportunitiesWork 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

• Extensive Experience as a 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