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 are the technical spearhead in the acquisition sales cycle, specializing in landing new customers and accelerating pipeline velocity. You will be the primary technical advisor to the sales team, partnering closely with them to position the Confluent platform's capabilities to new prospects.
Your mission is to secure the technical win by adeptly uncovering a prospect's implicit or stated Business Needs and designing a validated Technical Solution to meet them. From inspiring prospects with "Art of the Possible" demonstrations and storytelling to navigating complex technical roadblocks and Proofs of Concept (POCs), you are instrumental in ensuring the successful acquisition and initial deployment of Confluent technology. This role is a critical component of our strategy to expand our global customer base and will report into the Global Scale organization.
What You Will Do:
Own the Technical Sale:
Conduct deep-dive discovery and whiteboard sessions to identify and refine innovative Data Streaming use cases , translating them into validated solution architectures and paths to Go-Live,
Lead and execute Technical Proofs of Concept (POCs) to secure new customer logos and drive deal closure velocity.
Technical Triage & Qualification:
Exceptional skill in rapidly qualifying technical fit early in the process. The SE must quickly identify if the prospect is a good fit for the standard offering and, crucially, know when to disqualify a deal that requires too much customization or post-sales effort.
Consultative approach to value selling : ability to connect business objectives with technical solutions and present in a value-centric approach.
Be an Evangelist: Deliver compelling Technical Talks and Workshops to prospects, acting as a trusted advisor and demonstrating Thought Leadership in event-driven architecture.
Accelerate Onboarding: Forge strong relationships with key prospective customer stakeholders and serve as a dependable technical partner throughout the evaluation and initial onboarding process.
Develop and maintain reusable technical assets: contribute toward scaling efforts by developing and maintaining assets that address the most common use cases.
Product Advocacy: Serve as a critical feedback loop to Product and Engineering teams, ensuring the voice of the prospect is clearly articulated, and acting as a key advocate for the Confluent platform across the ecosystem.
Required technical and professional expertise
· Experience in Solutions Engineering or similar work experience in a technical pre-sales capacity. Process & Efficiency, a "scale" mindset. An ability to quickly leverage standardized demo environments, template proposals, and documented Proof of Concept (PoC) scopes to minimize preparation time.
· 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.
· Development or implementation experience in a cloud-based environment, along with Technical certifications (e.g., Cloud Developer/Architect, Data Engineering & Integration).
Clear, consistent demonstration of self-starter behavior, a desire to learn new things and tackle hard technical problems.
· Managing multiple evaluation processes across various industry verticals and use cases, ability to be nimble and organized is a must.
Preferred technical and professional experience
• Additional Technical Integration Knowledge: Exposure to various technical integration methodologies and tools, enhancing ability to address complex integration challenges.
• Advanced Agreement Management Skills: Experience with managing multiple agreements simultaneously, prioritizing tasks to meet competing deadlines and stakeholder expectations.
• Enhanced Cross-Functional Collaboration: Exposure to working with diverse teams, fostering strong relationships and leveraging technical expertise to drive project success.
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.