Sales Engineer - US Fed

DDN•Phoenix, AZ

About The Position

As a Sales Engineer, you'll architect high-performance storage solutions that enable customers to achieve their boldest ambitions. Work across finance, pharmaceuticals, education, and physical AI—designing systems that power real-time trading, accelerate drug discovery, enable groundbreaking research, and fuel autonomous systems. You'll translate complex customer requirements into elegant technical solutions, demonstrate capabilities through POCs and benchmarks, and serve as a trusted advisor throughout the sales cycle.

Requirements

Strong understanding of storage and data architectures: SAN, NAS, object storage, parallel file systems
Knowledge of architectural patterns for reliability, resilience, security, and scale
Understanding of storage and data protocols: S3, POSIX, NFS, SMB
Familiarity with network protocols: TCP/IP, InfiniBand, RDMA
Curiosity about massively parallel technologies (Lustre, GPFS, Exascaler)
Aptitude for AI workloads and how storage enables AI innovation
Ability to communicate technical concepts to both engineers and executives
Bachelor's in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field (or equivalent experience)
Exposure to storage/systems through coursework, internships, or projects
Strong analytical and problem-solving skills
Customer-facing communication skills
3-8+ years in pre-sales, solutions architecture, or technical consulting
Proven track record designing storage/infrastructure solutions
Hands-on experience with enterprise storage systems
Success managing complex technical sales cycles

Nice To Haves

Experience with AI/ML infrastructure, HPC, or high-performance workloads
Genuine curiosity about AI and its impact across industries
Ownership mindset—you solve problems until they're solved
Ability to translate technical complexity into business value
Thrive in fast-evolving technology environments
Collaborative team player with integrity and empathy

Responsibilities

Partner with customers to understand their critical data challenges—high-frequency trading, genomics processing, AI model training, or autonomous vehicle sensor fusion
Translate technical requirements into elegant, scalable storage solutions that exceed expectations
Act as trusted technical advisor throughout the sales cycle
Architect storage for AI/ML training, HPC simulations, data analytics, and GPU-accelerated workloads
Design for reliability, resilience, security, and scale—balancing performance with data protection
Create BOMs, system architectures, and technical proposals for complex RFPs
Conduct live demos, POCs, and performance benchmarking
Integrate with GPU clusters, Kubernetes, cloud platforms, and AI frameworks
Stay current on AI infrastructure and storage technology trends
Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams using field insights
Mentor team members and contribute to technical thought leadership
Shape product direction based on customer needs