Sr. Partner Sales Engineer

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DataDirect Networks (DDN) is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing.

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." - IDC

"The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments" - Marc Hamilton, VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA

DDN is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge data intelligence platform is designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence.

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management.

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage.

As a Partner Sales Engineer, you will play a critical role in growing and enabling DDN's partner ecosystem. This role focuses on supporting and developing technical capabilities within our Value-Added Resellers (VARs), Global Systems Integrators (GSIs), cloud partners, and strategic alliances.

You will serve as the technical leader and trusted advisor to partner organizations, enabling their sales engineers, architects, and technical teams to successfully position, design, and deliver DDN solutions.

Rather than focusing solely on direct customer engagement, you will scale DDN's reach through partner enablement, ensuring partners can independently drive opportunities, architect solutions, and win business.

Partner Enablement

Enable partner technical teams through structured training, workshops, and solution deep dives
• Build technical competency within partner SEs and solution architects
• Deliver partner enablement sessions on DDN platforms, architectures, and AI/HPC workflows
• Develop reusable technical content, solution guides, and reference architectures for partners
• Mentor partner engineers to successfully position and deploy DDN solutions

Partner Sales Support

• Support partners during pre-sales cycles including discovery, architecture design, and proposal development
• Collaborate with partner SEs to translate customer requirements into scalable DDN solutions
• Assist partners in responding to RFPs and building technical proposals
• Participate in joint customer engagements alongside partner teams
• Help partners run demonstrations, benchmarks, and proof-of-concept engagements

Partner Development

• Identify technical gaps within partner organizations and build enablement plans
• Work closely with partner leadership to grow their DDN technical practices
• Help partners develop repeatable solutions and service offerings built around DDN technologies
• Support partner pipeline growth by ensuring technical readiness to pursue opportunities

Internal Collaboration

• Work closely with DDN Sales, Channel, and Product teams to align partner strategy
• Provide field feedback to product and engineering teams from partner engagements
• Help develop partner certification programs and enablement materials
• Support strategic alliances and joint solution initiatives

What You Bring

Partner Development Experience

• 3-5 years of experience working with channel partners or developing partner ecosystems
• Experience enabling partner sales engineers, solution architects, or technical consultants
• Proven ability to grow technical competency within partner organizations
• Experience supporting partner-led sales opportunities

Technical Foundation

• Strong understanding of storage and data architectures: SAN, NAS, object storage, parallel file systems
• Familiarity with storage and data protocols: S3, POSIX, NFS, SMB
• Knowledge of networking technologies such as TCP/IP, InfiniBand, and RDMA
• Understanding of high-performance workloads including AI/ML, HPC, and large-scale analytics
• Familiarity with GPU infrastructure, Kubernetes, and modern AI frameworks is a plus
• Ability to translate technical concepts into partner-friendly enablement and training

What Sets You Apart

• Passion for building strong technical partnerships and scalable partner ecosystems
• Ability to teach and mentor partner engineers effectively
• Experience developing partner technical practices or centers of excellence
• Ability to translate complex architectures into repeatable partner solutions
• Comfortable working across multiple partner organizations and technical teams

Why DDN Impact

• Help partners bring AI infrastructure to customers across industries
• Enable technologies that power drug discovery, financial modeling, robotics, and AI innovation
• Scale DDN's impact through a global partner ecosystem

Growth

• Develop deep expertise in AI infrastructure, HPC, and parallel storage
• Work with some of the most advanced AI data platforms in the world
• Career growth opportunities across technical leadership and partner development roles

Team & Culture

• 20 years leading innovation in high-performance storage
• Collaborative environment focused on technical excellence
• Competitive compensation: base, bonuses, stock options, and benefits
• Flexible work arrangements

Industries Our Partners Serve

• Financial Services - high-frequency trading, risk modeling, real-time analytics
• Pharmaceuticals - genomics sequencing, drug discovery, clinical research
• Education & Research - university HPC, AI research, scientific computing
• Physical AI & Robotics - autonomous vehicles, robotics, sensor data processing

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.

DataDirect Networks, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.

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