Sr Sales Engineer

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." - IDC

"The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments" - Marc Hamilton, VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA

DDN is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge data intelligence platform is designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence.

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management.

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage.

We are seeking a Senior Sales Engineer with deep expertise in enterprise storage systems and a strong understanding of how these platforms support modern AI and analytics workloads. This customer-facing role will drive technical engagement in pre-sales cycles, translating complex business needs into scalable, high-performance storage solutions that are AI-ready and future-proof.

As a key technical advisor to our customers, you will design storage architectures that serve traditional enterprise workloads and enable data pipelines for AI/ML, HPC, and data-intensive applications. You'll collaborate closely with Account Executives, Engineering, Product, and Services teams to deliver impactful solutions across verticals including financial services, life sciences, research, media, and government. Preferred location is East Coast.

Key Responsibilities:

Lead technical discovery and solution architecture for storage-centric opportunities with AI-readiness considerations.
• Design and present high-performance, reliable, and scalable storage architectures for:
• Structured & Unstructured data workloads
• AI/ML model training and data ingestion
• Media and content workflows
• Conduct POCs, benchmarking, and live demos aligned with customer goals.
• Develop Bills of Materials (BoMs), solution blueprints, and RFP responses.
• Articulate differentiation of our solutions against legacy and modern storage competitors.
• Provide consultative guidance on integrating storage systems into data pipelines, GPU clusters, or AI accelerators.
• Maintain strong knowledge of market trends in data growth, AI readiness, and hybrid-cloud storage strategies.
• Support hand-off to delivery and services teams, ensuring architectural integrity through deployment.

Qualifications:

Required:

• 8+ years of experience in pre-sales engineering, solutions architecture, or enterprise storage design.
• Strong technical foundation in SAN, NAS, Object Storage, and Parallel File Systems (e.g., Exascaler, GPFS, Lustre..)
• Familiarity with supporting AI/data analytics workflows, including understanding of I/O patterns, performance tuning, and GPU data feed optimization.
• Ability to whiteboard and present technical concepts to both engineering and executive-level stakeholders.

Preferred:

• Exposure to AI/ML infrastructure, such as NVIDIA GPUs, Kubernetes, and AI data pipelines.
• Experience designing storage backends for data lakes, RAG pipelines, or vector databases.
• Familiarity with hybrid and multi-cloud architectures.
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or related technical field.

DDN has a very strong orientation towards these 4 characteristics and any successful employee will demonstrate these capabilities:

Self-Starter - Takes independent action to identify and solve problems. Seeks out relevant information needed to make decisions. Gets involved with new initiatives.

Success/Achievement Orientation - Delivers quality results consistently. Targets, achieves (or exceeds) measurable results. Sets challenging goals, focuses on critical priorities, and is accountable.

Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and responds with a systematic assessment that identifies and addresses cause of issue. Practical, realistic, and resourceful.

Innovative - Builds and improves key business processes that enhance the effectiveness of DDN. Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, and solves problems creatively.

DataDirect Networks, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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