Field PLM Principal Architect

Description

This is a remote role, so you will mainly work from home.

You will be a senior technical member of the Field PLM group, providing architecture and technical leadership for the company's most strategic campus and branch deals and customers.

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

You are expected to be the top technical authority on the campus and branch portfolio and to help raise the capability of the wider field organization.

The company provides edge-to-cloud technology that helps customers connect, protect and analyze data and applications.

Responsibilities

• Get involved early with Field PLMs and account teams on strategic, technically complex opportunities.
• Lead technical discovery, architecture discussions, whiteboarding and solution design.
• Work with Field PLMs and account teams to shape the technical win strategy.
• Lead or guide complex proofs of concept, migration plans and architecture validation.
• Spot technical risks, dependencies, product gaps and customer objections early in the sales cycle.
• Support competitive positioning and displacement where architecture makes the difference.
• Build customer confidence that the company's AI-driven, self-driving solutions will meet their architecture needs, and promote that vision as a thought leader.
• Design complex campus and branch solutions across wireless, wired, switching, campus fabric with EVPN-VXLAN, access control and NAC, segmentation, branch and WAN, APIs, automation and third-party integrations.
• Assess end-to-end designs for scale, resilience, operational simplicity, security, migration feasibility and customer outcomes.
• Act as the senior authority on architecture decisions and complex design tradeoffs.
• Stay hands-on and current with the campus and branch portfolio and related adjacent technologies.
• Lead technical work on critical customer satisfaction issues and escalations.
• Determine whether a problem comes from the product, configuration, architecture, operations or a mix of these.
• Run architecture reviews and assess telemetry, evidence and systemic risk.
• Coordinate technical work with Field PLMs, account SEs, support, product management and engineering.
• Check remediation plans and explain technical findings and recovery actions to customer technical leaders.
• Identify lessons learned and wider 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, configuration guidance and enablement material.
• Deliver advanced training, architecture office hours and knowledge transfer.
• Turn field experience into actionable product feedback for product management and engineering, and bring product direction and engineering guidance back to the field.
• Engage when technical complexity or business or customer impact calls for it, such as strategic new logos, major competitive takeouts, 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 network 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-facing design reviews.
• Ability to speak 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 direct authority and work across sales, field, support, product and engineering.
• Strong written and verbal communication, with the skill to make complex technical ideas simple.
• Willing to travel as required for strategic opportunities and customers.
• Advanced networking, wireless or security certifications.

Conditions

This role is remote and designated as teleworker.

Travel is required as needed for strategic opportunities and customers.

The posted salary range is USD 203,000 to 420,000 per year for New York. Actual pay may vary by location, experience, education, training or skill level.

The range is the combined base and target sales compensation paid at 100% of the sales plan, split 75% base and 25% target-level sales pay.

The company is an equal opportunity employer and makes decisions based on qualifications, merit and business need.

Benefits

• Health and wellbeing benefits covering physical, financial and emotional wellbeing.
• Career development programs, including paths to become a subject expert or move into another division.
• A culture that supports flexibility in managing work and personal needs.