Client Technical Director - Global Accounts, Sweden

BE PART OF BUILDING THE FUTURE. What do NASA and emerging space companies have in common with COVID vaccine R&D teams or with Roblox and the Metaverse?  The answer is data, -- all fast moving, fast growing industries rely on data for a competitive edge in their industries. And the most advanced companies are realizing the full data advantage by partnering with Pure Storage. Pure’s vision is to redefine the storage experience and empower innovators by simplifying how people consume and interact with data. With 11,000+ customers including 58% of the Fortune 500, we’ve only scratched the surface of our ambitions .  Pure is blazing trails and setting records: For nine straight years, Gartner has named Pure a leader in the Magic Quadrant  Our customer-first culture and unwavering commitment to innovation have earned us a certified Net Promoter Score in the top 1% of B2B companies globally Industry analysts and press applaud Pure’s leadership across these dimensions And, our 5,000+ employees are emboldened to make Pure a faster, stronger, smarter company as we go If you, like us, say “bring it on” to exciting challenges that change the world, we have endless opportunities where you can make your mark. POSITION SUMMARY The Pure Storage Client Technical Director (CTD) is a senior level technical Solutions Architect who will work with Pure’s Globals / Strategic clients. In turn, they will also work in collaboration with Pure’s Enterprise and Field pre-sales and account teams.  The CTD has a great grasp of IT industry trends, broad and deep IT industry experience and a high degree of business acumen.   The CTD will be working in the forefront of Pure’s global sales capability. The Strategic Accounts business is the growth area for Pure and the CTD is a key role in engaging clients in conversations about their technology needs to help them in their transformation to embrace Digital business. As a CTD you will be required to work closely with your customer base, building a trusted relationship, identifying and quantifying outcome based opportunities that can be delivered from our portfolio. The CTD is responsible for defining and articulating the business benefits and relevant outcomes of the end to end solution to multiple customer personas across different geographical regions.  Critically the CTD will be accustomed to creating a value proposition that is directly linked to a client’s business model and issues.  This includes presenting and explaining the benefits and differentiators of the chosen technology, how the solution has been mapped to meet the customer industry, business, and operational requirements, and the proposed commercial and financial models. The CTD will have a proven pedigree of working on and leading large IT projects whether those are consulting, pre and post-sales transformational IT services or IT design and build projects in IT departments. This senior level resource will be comfortable quickly establishing themselves as a thought leader and trusted advisor with their client stakeholders. The CTD must be knowledgeable across industry, business, IT strategy and technology domains and be comfortable presenting to C-Suite clients, discussing process with business managers or working with developers on solution strategy, architecture and code, and with storage admins designing operating models – from boardroom to hackathon to storage ops.  The CTD will keep up with the latest trends, be a disruptive thinker and have experience of driving cultural change in organisations. The CTD is likely to come from a technical background and have transitioned through an architecture role before growing their business and commercial skills. Understanding a client’s business fundamentals and industry drivers, then being able to build rapport with business leaders is key to ensuring that new disruptive approaches are taken up by clients. A CTD will be technical across a number of areas – importantly they must understand data and storage technology but also data science, modern IT architecture modelling, Agile application development and DevOps methods, CICD, automation principles, infrastructure operations, project management and IT security. It is expected that the CTD will be able to discuss with the customer operational challenges and solutions across their industry, including references, case studies and their own experience narratives. The CTD will have gravitas and authenticity. They will be expected to have first class interpersonal skills combined with a comfortable, open and compelling communication and presentation style. These skills, combined with proven domain knowledge, will create client confidence in the CTD and by extension Pure. The role of CTD requires a high degree of diplomacy and a strong EQ.  It is imperative that we can look at our value propositions from the viewpoint of our customers, therefore empathy is critical. Being able to represent the needs of the client into Pure will also need a high degree of EQ. The CTD will produce collateral for their clients in the form of presentations, short papers, demonstrations, proofs of concepts etc. These can be harvested back into Pure for reuse. They will also have the ability and will to design and build joint offerings with other functions in Pure such as the GSI and MSP teams, combining Pure products with GSI / MSP areas of expertise.  The CTD will be a believer in lifelong learning. Training will take up ~10% of their time. They will also attend industry conferences and disseminate the information that they have gathered to their peers and colleagues.  Primary Duties / Responsibilities First class influencing skills, able to quickly become a thought leader and trusted advisor. Understand commercial and disruptive technology trends in the client’s market and understand how these interact to constrain and inform a target solution. Understand customer business by actively researching their sector to determine business issues. Establish technical credibility with existing and prospective clients; providing the ability to cultivate relationships and envision creative sales and solution strategies that generate additional revenue.  Know the customer stakeholders and what their drivers, challenges and expectations are. Be able to calculate Total Cost of Ownership scenarios for the customer and to articulate that value across their customer business Understand what represents best of breed from a technology perspective in your customer’s vertical market.  Understand who the leaders and disrupters are in their peer group and why.   Outstanding communication including written, diagrammatic and oral and able to reduce complex ideas to simple terms and express these to both a non-technical and technical audience Understand what a proposed solution and change programme will deliver from a business and benefits perspective and to advise on areas where this is not congruent with the evolving solution.  Responsible for helping guide the sales team to deliver the best technology in a dynamically-evolving hyper-competitive environment Become a trusted and collaborative conduit between sales, engineering, and product management Identifying key trends and mapping customer challenges/needs with Pure Storage’s technology strategy Inspire/Ignite excitement internally and externally around the company's long-term vision and ability to execute against the market trend while being the best choice for customers’ business. Help maintain the company technical culture to continue to retain and attract top technical talent Predict long-term competitive trends due to the constant shifts in the market Provide technical leadership and mentoring for the System Engineering organisation Engage in field marketing events Qualifications and Requirements  Product experience across technology vendors Strong technical prowess, including good working knowledge of storage, compute, database, networking, virtualization and emerging technologies such as New Stack, AI/ML and/or Big Data Analytics where collaboration in the community and on social media is an advantage Ability to combine big-thinking strategic perspective with a detail-oriented approach to problem solving Entrepreneurial, ambitious approach coupled with a strong passion to make a difference Strong executive presence and ability to evangelise momentums with a wide range of dispositions Ability to work collaboratively across the broader Pure Storage organisation Create and maintain various reports and information sharing across their accounts and touchpoints, using the tooling available to them, and also recommend enhancements and improvements to our tooling and processes Proficient in driving for results, with a sense of accountability and ability to change pace and focus in dynamically-evolving hyper-competitive environment Requirements (Education, Certification, Training, and Experience) Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field or equivalent experience 10+ years of experience in technical leadership expertise Understanding in flash memory technologies Strong innovative disposition Fluency in Swedish & English   BE YOU—CORPORATE CLONES NEED NOT APPLY. Pure is where you ask big questions, think differently, and make an impact. This is not just a job, but a place where you have a voice and can accelerate your career. We value unique thoughts and celebrate individuality, and with ample opportunity to learn, develop yourself, and expand into different roles, joining Pure is an investment in your career journey. Through our Pure Equality program, which supports a flourishing field of employee resource groups, we nourish the personal and professional lives of our team members. And our Pure Good Foundation gives back to local and global communities through volunteering and grants. And because we understand the value of bringing your full and best self to work, we offer a variety of perks to manage a healthy balance, including flexible time off, wellness resources, and company-sponsored team events. PURE IS COMMITTED TO EQUALITY. Research shows that in order to apply for a job, women feel they need to meet 100% of the criteria while men usually apply after meeting about 60%. Regardless of how you identify, if you believe you can do the job and are a good match, we encourage you to apply. Pure is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or any other characteristic legally protected by the laws of the jurisdiction in which you are being considered for hire.  If you need assistance or an accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at TA-Ops@purestorage.com . APPLICANT & CANDIDATE PERSONAL INFORMATION PRIVACY NOTICE. 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