Channel Storage Presales Architect, Business Development

Description

You will join the company as a presales storage solution architect in the business development channel, working with enterprise customers and business partners. The company is a global edge-to-cloud business that helps organisations connect, protect, analyse and act on data and applications wherever they run, from edge to cloud.

The role centres on designing architectures for cyber resilience, data protection, AI readiness and infrastructure modernisation. It combines consulting, architecture design and presales work to help customers pick the technology that meets their business and operational goals.

The company has a flexible culture that values varied backgrounds and gives people room to manage work and personal needs.

Responsibilities

• Help customers move forward with digital transformation and AI adoption.
• Use your deep knowledge of the company's portfolio to write proposals and check that the customer's business and technical needs are met.
• Turn the functional design of a solution into a technical architecture that can grow with the customer.
• Follow industry trends, new technologies and competitor activity, and apply what you learn to the customer's technical environment.
• Support content, presentations, demos and booths at conferences, industry events and on social media.
• Balance cost, scope, scale and benefits to deliver strong value.
• Work closely with HPE and partner account team leaders to build value propositions, negotiation positions and overlooked opportunities in your accounts, and lead the design of complex solutions.
• Build lasting working relationships with customer technical teams and business partners by understanding their ecosystem, business needs and the outcomes the company can deliver.
• Share knowledge with peers and coach more junior team members.
• Design enterprise storage, data protection and disaster recovery architectures.
• Define backup, cyber resilience and data protection solutions.
• Produce high-level and low-level architectures, sizing documents and bills of materials.
• Support proofs of concept, benchmarks and technical demonstrations.

Requirements

• Strong working knowledge of the as-a-service business model, its business value, the full ecosystem and the outcomes that support aaS goals in your area.
• Well-developed consultative and value selling skills, including whiteboarding, handling objections and closing, so you can guide customers through business decisions.
• Ability to run live demos and walkthroughs of products, solutions, tools and services for customers, partners and other stakeholders.
• Good knowledge of partner offerings and how to access, engage and work with partners.
• Strong strategic and account planning skills, plus expert use of business and technical tools and standard CRM systems.
• Enterprise storage: proven experience designing SAN and NAS infrastructures, file and object storage solutions, and strong knowledge of enterprise storage platforms.
• Data solutions: data management and data lifecycle management, solutions for analytics, AI and unstructured data, and experience with AI data platforms, data lakes and data-centric infrastructure.
• Backup and data protection: knowledge of the main backup software vendors, disaster recovery and cyber recovery solutions, and backup and protection for VMware, Hyper-V and Kubernetes environments.
• Cloud and virtualisation: VMware vSphere and VMware Cloud Foundation, Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Kubernetes and container platforms (preferred).
• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Technology or equivalent experience.
• At least 4 years in a solution architect, presales architect, infrastructure architect or similar role.
• Knowledge-based and experience-based industry certifications (strongly preferred).
• Excellent communication and presentation skills.
• Fluent Italian and professional English.
• Valid driver's license.
• Willingness to travel frequently.

Conditions

Hybrid role: you work from an HPE office on average 2 days per week.

Based in Emilia-Romagna or Tuscany, with regular engagement with customers and partners across the territory.

Frequent travel throughout Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany, including on-site support for enterprise customers, system integrators and channel partners.

Run customer workshops, infrastructure assessments, PoCs, business reviews and technical events.

Build and maintain strong relationships with key customers and partner organisations in the region.

Occasional travel across Italy for internal meetings, training, vendor engagements and industry events.

Job level TCP03, sales function, storage focus.

Italy annual salary: EUR 54,000 to 95,400.

On-target pay is the combined base and target-level sales compensation, from the minimum to the maximum, paid when the hire reaches 100% of the sales plan. The base and target split is 80%/20%.

The company is an equal opportunity and veterans, disabled and LGBT employer, and it complies with all laws on the use of arrest and conviction records in hiring.

Benefits

• A strategic role with high visibility across the region.
• Exposure to innovative projects in data management, AI, enterprise storage and cyber resilience.
• Continuous learning and certification opportunities.
• A collaborative, innovation-driven team.
• Flexible working arrangements and a high degree of autonomy.
• Competitive pay aligned with your experience and qualifications.
• A comprehensive benefits package supporting physical, financial and emotional wellbeing.
• Development programmes to help you reach career goals, from becoming a subject expert to moving into another division.