Director of Federal Presales

Title: Director of Federal Presales

Reports to:  VP of Engineering

Location: Remote - United States of America

Job Description: The Sterling Federal Presales Leader will lead a team of highly effective sales engineers to support and enable Sterling’s Federal sales across all DoD, IC and Global segments. This is a highly visible position at Sterling that will require cross-functional leadership to execute technical sales strategies within the Federal government. This leader will attract, recruit, retain and develop engineers of various capabilities and align them to federal segments at Sterling and be a point of escalation for all teams. The Federal Presales leader will develop technical sales strategies of deeply complex and large organizations articulate the value of Sterling to customers and industry peers. We are looking for a high caliber technical thought leader in the areas of server, storage, cloud, cyber, AI/ML, compute & infrastructure that can accelerate our growth by inspiring and enabling individual contributors to perform at high levels.

Job Experience Requirements: *Must have Federal (Civilian or DoD) experience*. The Federal Presales leader should possess a strong aptitude and understanding of a wide breadth of information technology, products, tools, services, and solutions. Additionally, the Federal Presales leader will have deep expert level experience with infrastructure solutions provided by Dell, Cisco, HPE, VMware, Microsoft, Red Hat and more. This individual must understand the tactical and strategic elements of Solutions Consulting as a technical VAR or vendor.

Management Responsibilities

Developing and executing department strategies that win

• Sterling has large ambitions and the only way we can achieve them is by winning together as a team. We want our SEs to have a winning mindset and to celebrate all successful events. When they win, we want them to enjoy the limelight, to grow in their influence, and to increase their earnings.
• Develop strategies for your team, build plans, execute, measure, and grow.
• Work with internal resources to develop programs for execution of your strategy.
• Align strategies to corporate level strategies.
• Properly align engineers based on skillset and demand from various sales segments.
• Ensure technical strategies within the company make sense and will be profitable.
• Develop and maintain relationships with key customers and vendor stakeholders.

Working internally as a team

• Sterling’s selling motions are built on utilizing cross-functional teams to maximize success. Our SEs must work well with peers, vendors, and other segments within our business.
• Work with other cross-functional departments to push initiatives and be an advocate for our customers.
• Work with the executive staff to present your strategies and articulate the success of your team.
• Participate in account planning and QBRs with sales and sales leadership.
• Balance customer advocacy and need with what’s best for Sterling as a business, and articulate organizational goals to team members and customers.

Recruiting

• Plan staffing levels to meet Sterling’s strategic objectives.
• Work with HR staff to recruit, interview, select, hire, and employ an appropriate number of employees

Employee Performance Management

• Lead employees using a performance management and development process
• Clearly communicate job expectations; plan, monitor, and appraise job results against these expectations
• Provide effective performance feedback through employee recognition, rewards, coaching, counseling, and disciplinary action (with the assistance of HR, when necessary)
• Develop, coordinate, and enforce systems, policies, procedures, and productivity standards
• Lead employees to meet Sterling’s expectations for productivity, quality, and goal accomplishment

Employee Development & Coaching

• Technology is always changing, and we would never expect our SEs to know everything. We do, however, expect our SEs to learn from the experience of our extended engineering group and leadership. We try to minimize our mistakes and losses, however learning from them is vital.
• We expect our SEs and leaders to constantly evolve their knowledge, process and influences within the company and customers. What works today may not work tomorrow and we need SEs to prepare for the future of Sterling.
• Coach, mentor and develop team members; provide career development planning and opportunities
• Successfully onboard new employees and train them to be fully productive team members
• Empower employees to take responsibility for their jobs and goals
• Delegate responsibility and expect accountability and regular feedback

Productive Culture

• Sterling is a large small business that requires our employees to have an entrepreneurial motor to remain productive. Our SEs maximize their day and downtime to ensure their teams exceed their sales goals while building deeper relationships and trust with our customers.
• Consciously create a workplace culture that is consistent with Sterling’s overall mission and core values
• Work to understand employees’ current morale and create an environment that supports high morale and happiness
• Foster a spirit of teamwork, supportiveness, and unity among team members that allows for healthy disagreement over ideas, expeditious conflict resolution, and appreciation of diversity
• Provide oversight and direction to employees to ensure compliance with the company’s policies and procedures

Communication

• Maintain transparent communication within and between teams
• Appropriately communicate organization information through department meetings, one-on-one meetings, and appropriate written and regular interpersonal communication
• Proactively solicit and listen to employee feedback and convey this to other leaders or individuals as appropriate
• Resolve conflicts between individuals and teams

Core Technical Skillset Requirements (deep experience with one or more in each group)

• Virtualization: must have a strong understanding of virtualization technologies, including hypervisors such as VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, and Citrix
• DR/Backup: should have a strong understanding of backup and disaster recovery strategies from vendors such as Veeam, Zerto, Dell, Commvault, Rubrik and Cohesity.
• Storage: must have knowledge of storage architecture, including storage area networks (SANs), network-attached storage (NAS), and software-defined storage such as: vSAN, Dell, HPE, Pure Storage, NetApp, NetApp, Pure Storage, Qumulo and Nasuni
• Network Architecture: should have in-depth knowledge of network architecture, including software-defined networking (SDN) and network virtualization such as: Cisco , Fortinet, Palo Alto, Juniper, Extreme, Ruckus, VMware and HPE/Aruba

Additional Technical Fundamentals (high level familiarity with each group)

• Application & Automation: should have experience with automation tools such as Ansible, Puppet, and Chef to automate the deployment and management of infrastructure. Also, high level familiarity with: F5, Nginx, AVI/NSX, Citrix ADC and A10 Networks
• Security: should have a strong understanding of security principles, including authentication, authorization, and encryption, to ensure that infrastructure is secure from vendors: Fortinet, Cisco, Palo Alto, Darktrace, Checkpoint, ZScaler, Nessus, Mimecast, Proofpoint
• Cloud: should be familiar with cloud computing technologies, including public, private, and hybrid clouds, and be able to recommend the best cloud solution based on customer requirements. Must be familiar with: AWS, Azure, Google, Oracle, Gov Clouds
• Cost Optimization: must have a good understanding of cost optimization techniques, including using open-source solutions and scaling infrastructure based on demand, to provide cost-effective solutions to customers.
• DevOps: should be familiar with DevOps practices and tools, including continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) pipelines, source control, and testing frameworks.
• Services: MSP and Deployment experience

Sterling Computers is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, age, disability, military status, national origin or any other characteristic protected under federal, state or applicable local law.