Strategic Solutions Engineer

SHI International; Chicago (IL); Remote; USD 180,000 - 260,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Strategic Solutions Engineer to foster relationships with clients and drive technology solutions. This remote role, requiring residence in Illinois, focuses on consulting in areas like data center, cloud, and security. You will leverage your expertise to engage with key stakeholders, ensuring a world-class customer experience while meeting sales quotas. Join a diverse and dynamic team that values professional growth and offers a competitive compensation package, including health benefits and a supportive work environment. If you're passionate about technology and thrive in a collaborative setting, this opportunity is perfect for you.

Benefits

Health benefits

Wellness benefits

Financial benefits

Continuous professional growth opportunities

Diversity commitment

Qualifications

• 2+ years experience in complex Data Center sales opportunities.
• Strong knowledge of virtualization technologies and cloud solutions.

Responsibilities

• Engage with customers to ensure account retention and explore new business.
• Collaborate with sales teams and drive the sales process.

Skills

Outstanding written and verbal communication

Relationship building

Proactive mindset

Excellent Presentation & Negotiation Skills

Results-driven

Attention to detail

Education

Bachelor's Degree

Relevant work experience

Tools

Microsoft Office Products (Visio, PowerPoint, Excel, Word)

VMware

Hyper-V

Citrix

AWS

Azure

Job description

Job Summary

The Strategic Solutions Engineer will work as a technology generalist interfacing with larger customers and engaging in face-to-face meetings. They will uncover and develop opportunities by building strong relationships with the customer. This will include consulting on data center, edge, core, cloud, security, collaboration, and services. This individual will need to understand and convey how that technology enables business.

This position is a remote position requiring residence in the state of Illinois to support business needs as determined by SHI management.

About Us

Since 1989, SHI International Corp. has helped organizations change the world through technology. We’ve grown every year since, and today we’re proud to be a $14 billion global provider of IT solutions and services.

Over 17,000 organizations worldwide rely on SHI’s concierge approach to help them solve what’s next. But the heartbeat of SHI is our employees – all 6,000 of them. If you join our team, you’ll enjoy:

• Our commitment to diversity, as the largest minority- and woman-owned enterprise in the U.S.
• Continuous professional growth and leadership opportunities.
• Health, wellness, and financial benefits to offer peace of mind to you and your family.
• World-class facilities and the technology you need to thrive – in our offices or yours.

Responsibilities

Includes but not limited to:

• Responsible for the Solution Practice sales quota in their territory/pod.
• Take ownership of the sales pipeline for Solution Practice opportunities by engaging where appropriate, following up with prospects to discover, defend, and acquire new business.
• Collaborate and engage with customers to ensure account retention and penetrate multiple lines of sales entry for Data Center, Cloud, Network, Security, Collaboration, and Services business in existing accounts.
• Collaborate, develop, and execute strategy for top prospects with the sales team to discover, grow, and acquire new business.
• Ongoing training and learning to understand the company services offerings in all solution practice areas by attending company training and expanding knowledge through self-study.
• Collaborate and engage with multiple layers of contacts within an organization, including but not limited to CIO, IT Directors, CTO, Application Managers, etc.
• Collaborate with sales teams and drive the sales process of the solution, including identifying the opportunity, qualifying, forecasting, decision-making criteria, and closing.
• Build the region/territory based on strategic account planning done in collaboration with the account executive and extended team.
• Demonstrates leadership to ensure that the company’s recommended solutions are comprehensive, achieve customer expectations, and meet customer business needs and planning.
• Build strong relationships and trust with the technical decision maker, executive stakeholders, and own the technical side of customer relationships.
• Focused on delivering a world-class customer experience according to company standards.
• Develop relationships with the Local Technology Community (MFG’s and SI Partners), and the appropriate customer technical personnel to establish market credibility and ensure the sales team understands the customer's ongoing needs.
• Educate and develop sales teams on technical selling, product training, services, and technology trends by taking advantage of office hours, setting up formal training, and relationship building.
• Educate customers with product training and positioning technical solutions sales cycle management.
• Engage in regular one-on-one meetings with manager and time with team ensuring value prop, resource usage, opportunity development, and visibility to Data Center, Cloud, Network, Security, Collaboration, and Services business (Corp / District / Rep).

Qualifications

• Bachelor's Degree or relevant work experience required.
• 2+ years experience working in complex Data Center sales opportunities.
• Minimum 3 years previous IT Administrator/Management experience desired.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office Products Visio, PowerPoint, Excel, Word.
• Experience supporting Enterprise, SLED, and Higher Education organizations desired.
• Advanced knowledge of servers, storage, networking, virtualization, cloud, and unified communication and collaboration regarding their impact on the business.
• Knowledge of Converged Infrastructure of servers, storage, networking, and virtualization regarding their impact on the business.
• Deep familiarity with the RFP process and possess a winning record.
• Experience with Disaster Recovery, Business Continuity, and High Availability Solutions (backup/recovery, mirroring, active/standby, active/active, clustering).
• Strong knowledge of Virtualization technologies, Hypervisors, server and desktop virtualization (i.e., VMware, Hyper-V, Citrix, VDI).
• Expertise in mainstream technologies to include: Dell/EMC, NetApp, HPE, Cisco, Palo Alto, Pure Storage, Azure, and AWS.
• Experience with Public and Private Cloud Solutions.

Required Skills

• Outstanding written and verbal communication.
• Able to build relationships with customers.
• Proactive mindset.
• Excellent Presentation & Negotiation Skills.
• Ability to work effectively, add value as a team member, and assume a leadership role for the team.
• Ability to train and disseminate information within an Area or Operation.
• Ability to resolve and close complex technical and selling situations.
• Ability to work effectively within all levels of an organization, both internally and externally.
• Ability to work both individually and in a team environment.
• Must be results-driven with a strong sense of urgency.
• Attention to detail, organization, and follow-up skills are critical.
• Initiative to research and resolve problems with a positive attitude.
• Exceptional time management & organization.
• Strong documentation skills to include system/network diagrams and presentations.
• Possess a real passion for technology.

Unique Requirements

• Travel to client locations required up to 75%.
• Extended hours are required to complete some special projects.

Additional Information

• The estimated annual pay range for this position is $180,000 - $260,000 which includes a base salary and bonus. The compensation for this position is dependent on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location and, therefore, will vary from individual to individual. Benefits may include, but are not limited to, medical, vision, dental, 401K, and flexible spending.
• Equal Employment Opportunity – M/F/Disability/Protected Veteran Status.