Field PLM Principal Architect

Description

This is a remote role designated as Remote/Teleworker, so you will mainly work from home.

The company provides edge-to-cloud products and services that help customers connect, protect, analyze and act on their data and applications, from the edge to the cloud.

You will be a senior technical member of the Field PLM group, focused on the campus and branch portfolio and its strategic opportunities and customers.

You will work alongside Field PLMs, territory managers, systems engineers, product management, engineering and support to win complex deals, design and validate architectures, clear technical blockers and protect the install base.

You will act as one of the most senior technical experts on the campus and branch portfolio while helping grow the wider field team's skills.

Responsibilities

• Get involved early with Field PLM and account teams on strategic, technically complex opportunities.
• Lead technical discovery, architecture discussions, whiteboard sessions and solution design.
• Work with Field PLM and account teams to shape the technical win strategy.
• Lead or guide complex proofs of concept, migration planning and architecture validation.
• Spot technical risks, dependencies, product gaps and customer objections early in the sales cycle.
• Support competitive positioning and displacement where architecture decides the outcome.
• Build customer confidence that the AI-driven, self-driving solutions will meet their architecture needs, and promote them as a thought leader.
• Design complex campus and branch solutions across wireless and wired assurance, switching, campus fabric (EVPN-VXLAN), access control and NAC, segmentation, branch and WAN, the AI network assistant, APIs, automation and third-party integrations.
• Assess end-to-end designs for scale, resilience, operational simplicity, security, migration feasibility and customer outcomes.
• Make the final call on architecture decisions and complex design tradeoffs.
• Stay hands-on with the campus and branch portfolio and related technologies.
• Take ownership of critical customer satisfaction issues and escalations to keep customers successful.
• Determine whether a problem comes from the product, configuration, architecture, operations or a mix of these.
• Review architectures and analyze telemetry, evidence and systemic risks.
• Coordinate technical work with Field PLM, account SEs, support/TAC, product management and engineering.
• Check remediation plans and explain findings and recovery steps to customer technical leaders.
• Identify lessons learned and system-wide improvements beyond the immediate incident.
• Mentor Field PLMs and systems engineers on advanced campus and branch architectures.
• Create reusable reference architectures, validated designs, best practices, configurations, decision guidance and enablement material.
• Deliver advanced training, architecture office hours and knowledge transfer.
• Turn field experience into product feedback for product management and engineering, and bring product direction and engineering guidance back to the field.
• Step in when technical complexity or business or customer impact calls for senior expertise, such as strategic new logos, major competitive takeovers, complex wireless, switching, routing or EVPN-VXLAN opportunities, large multi-campus or multi-domain designs, complex migrations and POCs, critical escalations, and situations needing product or engineering involvement.

Requirements

• Extensive experience in enterprise networking architecture and pre-sales, with a record of success in complex customer environments.
• Expert knowledge of campus wired and wireless networking, switching and routing architectures, and enterprise network design.
• Deep understanding of EVPN/VXLAN and modern campus fabric architectures.
• Strong knowledge of identity and NAC, segmentation, branch and WAN, and AI-driven network operations.
• Proven ability to lead complex technical discovery, architecture workshops, POCs and customer design reviews.
• Ability to communicate credibly with senior network architects, technical executives, product management and engineering.
• Strong troubleshooting and critical thinking across product, configuration, architecture and operations.
• Ability to influence without formal authority and work well across sales, field, support, product and engineering teams.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with the skill to make complex technical ideas simple.
• Willingness to travel as required to support strategic opportunities and customers.
• Advanced networking, wireless or security certifications are relevant.

Conditions

Remote role, primarily from home.

Travel is required as needed for strategic opportunities and customers.

The expected pay range is $203,000 to $420,000 (USD) annually in California. This covers combined base and target sales pay at 100% of the sales plan, split 75% base and 25% target sales compensation.

The actual offer may vary based on location, experience, education, training and skill level.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes applications from qualified people with disabilities and veterans, and it complies with laws on the use of arrest and conviction records.

The company will never ask for fees, bank details, Social Security numbers or national IDs through social media or chat apps. Report suspected recruitment fraud to local authorities.

Benefits

• Comprehensive health and wellbeing benefits covering physical, financial and emotional health.
• Career development programs to help you become a subject expert or move into another division.
• Benefit details for US employees are available on the company's new hire enrollment page.