Title:  Azure Cloud Solutions Architect

About us

We are part of the global Cloud Solutions Architect team within NetApp’s Public Cloud Services business unit, specifically tasked with driving customer adoption of our Microsoft Azure cloud services. Our Sales, Technical, and Customer Success teams are charged with implementing and scaling the many Cloud and software services in our portfolio and exceeding our Sales goals. It’s a very dynamic area within NetApp, and we pride ourselves on our agility, adaptability, and continuous process improvement. 

Job Summary

We are hiring for a position located in (Japan) for NetApp’s Azure Cloud Solutions Architect (CSA) team to operate in a pre-sales capacity, working to identify candidate workloads, design and architect appropriate solutions, run proofs-of-concept, and move customers into active consumption of NetApp’s Azure-based products.  

Much of the customer engagement will be done collaboratively with the Microsoft Sales and CSA teams, where we are providing the technical expertise on Cloud services offered by NetApp and Azure. There is also an evangelism side of the role – the qualified candidate must be capable of articulating how our technology enables customer innovation in Azure. The focus will be on our Japanese customers, but there will be some activity outside of that area. 

This is a highly technical role with a heavy focus on customer and partner (Microsoft) interaction, education, and collaboration, and you will find yourself in the heart of our customers’ digital transformation efforts. 

Regular Activities:

• Qualifying customer opportunities and requirements, and the potential solution fit for NetApp’s offerings in Azure. 
• Designing solutions that may include one or more of software, Cloud, and professional services; running technical workshops to demonstrate those solutions. 
• Presenting (Solution Selling) at customer and partner briefings, Microsoft and NetApp sales meetings, corporate events, etc. 
• Designing and running proofs-of-concept to illustrate solution fit within the customer’s environment. 
• Handover new customer wins to Professional Services and / or Customer Success. 
• Participating in / hosting industry meet-ups and user groups. 
• Publishing reference architectures, significant wins, best practices, etc., both internally and externally. 
• Creating and maintaining a brand & social media presence via Blogging & YouTube channels etc. 
• Maintaining customer Opportunity status in Salesforce. 
• Self-study / learning time: 
  • Staying abreast of the latest developments in public cloud services. 
  • Acquiring / maintaining technical expertise. 
  • Developing or enhancing processes and techniques employed by our Sales and Technical teams. 

Job Requirements

• Strong technical knowledge of Cloud concepts and technologies, particularly Microsoft Azure (Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification preferred). 
• A passion for solving customer business challenges with Cloud technology solutions. 
• Personal initiative - you will not be closely supervised, so this job requires a motivated, results-oriented individual who can achieve customer success without close supervision. 
• Experience in working with customers across the Japanese business landscape. 
• Ability to prioritize and address multiple projects concurrently. 
• Embody a Growth Mindset and the appetite to learn and adapt to changing requirements and technology. 
• Experience running proofs-of-concept for software, hardware, or Cloud-based solutions in a pre-sales role. 
• Knowledge of Network Attached Storage (NAS) and how application workloads such as SAP, Oracle, SQL, HPC, VDI, VMware and others utilize NAS storage in a Cloud environment. 
• On-premises infrastructure and workload experience and data migration methodologies. 
• Familiarity with Container orchestration runtime concepts and solutions is a plus (preferably Kubernetes). 
• Willingness to travel within the assigned geography to customer locations, and occasionally further. 
• Excellent Japanese verbal and written communication skills. 
• Strong English language skills (other APAC languages are a plus). 

Education

• Desire Bachelor’s degree plus 4-6 years of related field experience. 
• Microsoft Azure Cloud certifications are required; however AWS and Google Cloud skills are valuable/transferable.