Tanzu Services Solution Lead - Opportunity for Working Remotely

Why will you enjoy this new opportunity? 

Solution Leads at Tanzu Labs partner with the account, services sales, and customer success teams to identify and scope work for the platform services sales pipeline. You do this by being the face of Tanzu services platform engagements for our existing and potential customers while technically supporting our field and customers to ensure the inclusion of the correct platform services to achieve clients’ desired business outcomes.  Solution Leads are trusted advisors and relationship builders, who expertly and eloquently communicate the value of our services, their transformational impact on our clients’ outcomes, and how we achieve them together through the use of Tanzu platform services engagements.  

Solution Leads have an appreciation for and understanding of cloud native technologies, agile, lean and user-centered design values, principles, and practices, along with how they can be applied in a world filled with legacy technologies and processes. They believe that our customers’ success is our success -- that we are true partners on the customer’s mission.  Our SLs are excited by the mission of catalyzing enterprise transformation, and delivering the organizational value that technology can unlock. You are the bridge between our core sales, specialist sales, services sales, and services delivery teams.

SLs thrive in a complex ecosystem, collecting, sharing, and synthesizing input from many directions and enabling the teams you support to continuously deliver customer value. You do this through tight alignment and collaboration with our account teams to position the right products and services.  You are the primary point of contact and voice of expertise in the room for our stakeholders.  They need your guidance on the appropriate services to focus on so they can support our customer’s needs to build a successful platform journey.  Because of your expertise in translating our customers’ strategic, tactical efforts, and business problems into actionable services engagements, you’ve enabled them to overcome barriers to platform adoption that would have been otherwise challenging, allowing them to thrive with our Tanzu platform products. Our customers depend on you to help them uncover what they don’t know and they rely on the leadership qualities of our team to divine the path to their intended outcome.

Along with your exceptional consulting skills, experienced-based opinions, and ability to articulate the value proposition of consultative, transformational professional services, you bring humility, empathy, and a learning mindset to everything you do. SLs believe in doing the right thing and doing what works. As a trusted advisor you are able to inspire confidence while clearly voicing objective (sometimes painful) truths to audiences of all sizes... whether you are facilitating discussions or presenting to audiences your wisdom that will help them achieve incredibly challenging goals that they often do not yet have the experience or personnel to solve themselves.  As an SL, you understand the overall sales cycle and its influence on future opportunities. We measure progress by delivering a product platform ready to ship software on, not documentation. Our SL team evangelizes outcomes and serves as the conduit to “what is possible'' for our customers with our services delivery organization engaged. As the evangelizing voice for services that support and enable the outcomes a refined platform provides, you empower and advise the sales community to do the same wherever possible.

Tanzu Solution Leads are hungry to learn and love sharing what they know. Our diverse client base presents us with new problem spaces all the time. We use the fundamentals of Agile, Lean, and User-Centered Design to guide us. We strive for diverse teams because we’ve learned they are the most successful. If you want to work with a team of curious, brilliant, and kind technologists, come join us!

Success in the Role: What are the performance outcomes over the first 6-12 months you will work toward completing?  

• 1st Day: You've had a great first day, met your manager and a few of your peers who’ve welcomed you to the company and answered any burning questions you have. You also have a nice new computer setup!
• 1st Week: You have a good sense of our Labs practices and shadowed some sessions to see it work in practice. You have learned about our clients, tools, techniques, and your role within VMware. You’re more integrated into the wider Solution Leadership practice and understand how you’re a critical part of that.
• 1st Month: You understand and can now articulate the complete Platform Services Portfolio for all Tanzu Products. You’ve been assigned your territory, know your account team partners well and applied your skills as an SL and consultant to shape a platform services deal that will enable your customers to succeed with Tanzu platform products.  Working as the point of contact for pre-sales and sales in your region, everyone you meet is excited to collaborate with you and realizes that you are an experienced and trusted voice they can rely upon!
• 1st Quarter:  You’ve made amazing improvements to your SL skills! You feel more comfortable helping identifying and driving qualified opportunities to closure. You now have oversight of real-time information on all pipeline opportunities in which you will attach platform services, ensuring the right services are positioned at the right time to meet customer business use cases.  You feel capable of adapting your style to the needs of the team you are supporting. You paired with your manager to create goals aligned to your career and development interests. You have the support and resources at hand to go on that journey.
• 1st Year: You’ve succeeded in shaping services engagements that have shipped a lot of valuable software on our Tanzu platform! You've improved the skills and abilities of your partners, supporting the sales team’s development of the territory and account sales strategy. You’ve learned and understand your customers’ business model and primary business challenges in order to match the VMware solution to their needs, challenges, and technical requirements. You’ve become an active member of our diverse SL community!

The Work: What type of work will you be doing? What assignments, requirements, or skills will you be performing on a regular basis?  

Your regular activities may be modified to suit your professional strengths, but daily life at Tanzu will have you doing many or all of the following:  

• Executing a Top Down/Bottom Up customer engagement strategy while strengthening existing relationships to elevate VMware to a more strategic position
• Crafting compelling proposals and communicate the business value and/or return on investment of your proposed solutions to the customer
• Fostering collaboration by pairing daily with account team stakeholders and other SLs to solve complex problems in uncertain environments using a combination of their domain knowledge and your skills. Advising your customers on our approach all along the way!
• Be a crucial member of a team dedicated to helping a single customer achieve their goals. You’re structuring the scope of platform engagements to build, modernize, and launch a custom software platform with and for our customers.
• Advocate for modern best practices like Lean and Agile that make digital transformation a reality.
• Building a deep understanding of the “Platform Journey” by performing research, brainstorming solutions, and helping guide platform services portfolio direction. Balancing opportunities and business needs while keeping partners and stakeholders aligned and supportive. 
• Facilitating scoping sessions, product demos, discovery sessions, stakeholder and partner check-ins, and other key meetings virtually or in-person.  You are traveling as needed to customer locations in the U.S. and the Americas to support ongoing efforts to build consumption of VMware product offerings.
• Using your domain expertise in change management, compliance, and governance, as well as, your knowledge of tools needed to scale solutions that are relevant to your customer’s success in overcoming developer challenges and cloud native deployments with your technical competency in container orchestration
• Work with client leadership and partners to define and maintain business and technical strategies and roadmaps
• Challenging the status quo in large enterprises including strategy and adoption of platforms, processes and modernization initiatives
•  Actively listening to understand the importance of what others are saying, so you understand not only their technical and business needs but the political dynamics of their organization so that you are recommending and supporting outcomes that can only be achieved through a combined effort
• Learn new skills and grow in your own career while contributing learnings back to others in our Product Management practice so we can all grow and thrive together.

What is the leadership like for this role? What is the structure and culture of the team like?  

We believe in collaborative, autonomous teams dedicated to achieving our customer’s goals. Our leadership strives to create a healthy environment for you to do your best work, and will empower you to work directly with your team and clients to deliver on the strategy. 

We are big thinkers who generate a lot of ideas, treat each other with kindness, collaborate on initiatives that matter, and maintain a safe space for all. We support one another by whatever means necessary, and trust each other to get the job done right, in a way that accommodates a flexible schedule to balance work and life. 

Your manager will be an experienced practitioner. They will support your growth through training, mentorship, and stretch opportunities. You should expect regular, bi-weekly 1:1 meetings with your manager where they are focused on career planning and project support.

We are passionate about building valuable platforms and platform teams set up for long term success. We strive to leave every client team better than we found it and love collaborating along the exciting journey. We have a bias towards action and love to test ideas so we can learn and improve. We have learned that being empathetic, inclusive, and kind empowers people to achieve greatness. We look forward to welcoming team members, and work hard to make sure the onboarding process is smooth.

Where is this role located?  

Like many companies, the COVID pandemic changed how we work. We are fortunate to be capable of running a strong business in a 100% remote working environment. 

However, we believe that the fastest way to build authentic relationships is in person. Our role as consultants requires us to work well with new teammates on many types of engagements. We navigate large customer organizations, facilitate team building and work towards shared goals. We’ve found that we can do this remotely when we have to, but it is faster when we are co-located. Kicking off customer engagements in-person also fosters happier and more productive remote days. Once the pandemic is behind us, we expect more in-person collaboration at one of our offices or at the customer's site (25-50%). 

What are the benefits and perks of working at VMware?  

You and your loved ones will be supported with a competitive and comprehensive benefits package. Below are some highlights, or you can view the complete benefits package by visiting www.benefits.vmware.com. 

• Employee Stock Purchase Plan 
• Medical Coverage, Retirement, and Parental Leave Plans for All Family Types 
• Generous Time Off Programs 
• 40 hours of paid time to volunteer in your community  
• Rethink's Neurodiversity program to support parents raising children with learning or behavior challenges, or developmental disabilities 
• Financial contributions to your ongoing development (conference participation, training, course work, etc.) 
• Wellness reimbursement and online fitness and wellbeing classes 

EPIC2 values

VMware culture is based on a set of shared values best expressed through the acronym EPIC2: execution, passion, integrity, customers, and community. These values imbue everything that we do, from our products and services to our community work through the VMware Foundation.

It’s not unusual for a company to develop a set of core values. Where VMware stands out—and a major reason the company’s strong corporate culture has been recognized—is that the company’s values are a living, dynamic part of the workplace.

VMware was named in Forbes as one of America’s Best Employers for Women, coming at number 3 in the IT category and number 57 overall (out of 300!).

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement

VMware is an Equal Opportunity Employer committed to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, national, social or ethnic origin, age, physical, mental or sensory disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, HIV status, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status including pregnancy, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate.  VMware will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics.

For US based candidates, the annual pay range (OTE for commissioned roles; Salary for other roles) for this position is: $199,000 - $358,000. The actual offer will be based on the role, location, and individual candidate experience. Bonus, commission, and/or equity may be eligible for this position. VMware offers comprehensive benefits including, but not limited to: medical, dental, and vision plans, company paid holidays, paid sick leave, and vacation time. Additional benefits for this position can be found at https://benefits.vmware.com/. Your talent advisor can share more about the specific salary range for your preferred location during the hiring process.

This job may require the candidate to travel and/or work from a facility that requires full vaccination prior to entry.

Category : Sales
Subcategory: Solutions Architect
Experience: Business Leadership
Full Time/ Part Time: Full Time
Posted Date: 2023-04-26

VMware Company Overview: At VMware, we believe that software has the power to unlock new opportunities for people and our planet. We look beyond the barriers of compromise to engineer new ways to make technologies work together seamlessly. Our cloud, mobility, and security software form a flexible, consistent digital foundation for securely delivering the apps, services and experiences that are transforming business innovation around the globe. At the core of what we do are our people who deeply value execution, passion, integrity, customers, and community. Shape what’s possible today at http://careers.vmware.com.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement: VMware is an Equal Opportunity Employer and Prohibits Discrimination and Harassment of Any Kind: VMware is committed to the principle of equal employment opportunity for all employees and to providing employees with a work environment free of discrimination and harassment. All employment decisions at VMware are based on business needs, job requirements and individual qualifications, without regard to race, color, religion or belief, national, social or ethnic origin, sex (including pregnancy), age, physical, mental or sensory disability, HIV Status, sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression, marital, civil union or domestic partnership status, past or present military service, family medical history or genetic information, family or parental status, or any other status protected by the laws or regulations in the locations where we operate. VMware will not tolerate discrimination or harassment based on any of these characteristics. VMware encourages applicants of all ages. Vmware will provide reasonable accommodation to employees who have protected disabilities consistent with local law.

Salary : $199,000 - $358,000