Corporate Solutions Architect - AI & Enterprise Storage
Role details
Job location
Tech stack
Job description
DDN is seeking a hands-on Solutions Architect who thrives on building, testing, and optimising real-world storage and AI infrastructure solutions. You will be in the lab and in the field, assembling software configurations, executing performance tests, and solving complex system-level problems alongside engineering and customers alike. Combining deep technical practice with strategic customer engagement, you will serve as a trusted authority on DDN's solution portfolio, driving both product quality and customer success from initial build through to production deployment., Solution Building & Ecosystem Qualification Hands-on design, assembly, and configuration of hardware and software solution stacks incorporating DDN products alongside third-party ecosystem components.
- Work directly with partner organisations and customers to qualify DDN solutions across a broad range of hardware platforms, operating environments, and application frameworks - building a comprehensive qualification matrix ahead of GA and on an ongoing basis.
- Document build procedures, configurations, and qualification outcomes to a standard that enables marketing to produce formal solution briefs and reference architectures.
Performance Testing & Competitive Benchmarking
- Personally design and execute performance test suites across multiple protocols including S3, file, and SQL/database workloads - owning the full workflow from testbed construction to results analysis.
- Produce detailed competitive benchmarking reports that clearly articulate DDN's performance advantages over competing products, and file engineering tickets where performance gaps need to be closed.
- Engage with public benchmarking bodies such as SPEC, STAC, and IO500, building and tuning configurations specifically aimed at achieving top-tier published results.
Customer Technical Engagement
- Serve as the primary technical point of contact for high-priority customers, getting hands-on from initial deployment through to system stabilisation.
- Proactively diagnose and resolve system-level issues spanning storage, networking, compute, and application layers - going beyond storage when necessary to unblock customers.
- Conduct thorough root cause analyses using diagnostic tooling, log evaluation, and DDN's analytics platforms, escalating bugs to engineering with clear, reproducible documentation.
- Collaborate across engineering and product management to ensure appropriate prioritisation of customer-impacting issues.
Sales Enablement & Product Positioning
- Present at customer briefings, industry conferences, and technical forums - conveying performance characteristics and architectural differentiation with authority grounded in direct hands-on experience.
- Partner with Product Management to surface field-identified gaps and translate real-world testing insight into actionable roadmap input.
- Develop sales tools and technical content that communicate DDN's value proposition clearly, working with Marketing to sharpen competitive positioning and messaging.
Knowledge & Team Enablement
- Develop and maintain best practice documentation, repeatable build guides, and diagnostic tooling.
- Build automation to streamline testing workflows, reporting, and customer environment integration.
- Organise knowledge resources that raise the capability of the broader DDN technical and support organisation.
Requirements
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field (or equivalent hands-on experience)., * Proven track record in a hands-on technical role - you have built, racked, configured, tuned, and broken things, and know how to learn from all of it.
- Strong practical experience with distributed storage systems, high-performance networking, compute infrastructure, and application frameworks at scale.
- Demonstrable experience designing, building, and executing performance benchmarks across file, object (S3), and database protocols, with a methodical approach to results analysis and reporting.
- Solid DevOps capability - comfortable writing scripts and tools, automating test pipelines and reports, and integrating diagnostic outputs into varied customer environments.
- Experience with hardware platform selection, configuration, and validation as part of solution qualification workflows.
- Proficiency with diagnostic and log analysis tooling, and familiarity with issue tracking and escalation processes.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills - able to produce rigorous technical documentation and present confidently to both engineering audiences and executive stakeholders.
- Demonstrated ability to work cross-functionally across engineering, product management, support, and sales.
- Prior involvement in competitive technical benchmarking and/or public benchmarking programmes is highly desirable.
- Familiarity with the software development lifecycle including bug tracking and release processes.
- Experience with infrastructure observability and analytics platforms is a plus.
DDN
DDN has a very strong orientation towards these 4 characteristics and any successful employee will demonstrate these capabilities:
Self-Starter - Takes independent action to identify and solve problems. Seeks out relevant information needed to make decisions. Gets involved with new initiatives.
Success/Achievement Orientation - Delivers quality results consistently. Targets, achieves (or exceeds) measurable results. Sets challenging goals, focuses on critical priorities, and is accountable.
Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and responds with a systematic assessment that identifies and addresses cause of issue. Practical, realistic, and resourceful.
Innovative - Builds and improves key business processes that enhance the effectiveness of DDN. Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, and solves problems creatively.
