Pre-Sales Solution Architect - HCI (VMware & Nutanix)

Job Title: Pre-Sales Solution Architect HCI (VMware & Nutanix)

Department: Presales / Enterprise Infrastructure Solutions

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced and customer-focused Pre-Sales Solution Architect specializing in Hyperconverged Infrastructure (HCI), enterprise virtualization, and datacenter hardware. In this role, you will lead the technical design and sales enablement for modern compute, storage, and HCI solutions powered by VMware and Nutanix. You will partner closely with sales teams, OEM partners, and enterprise customers to translate business demands into scalable, resilient datacenter architectures.

Key Responsibilities

• Solution Architecture & Design: Architect robust, end-to-end HCI solutions utilizing VMware (vSphere, vSAN, VMware Cloud Foundation) and Nutanix (AOS, AHV, Prism, Files/Volumes).
• Hardware & Storage Sizing: Conduct detailed compute, memory, IOPS, and storage tiering calculations across enterprise x86 hardware platforms (Dell PowerEdge/VxRail, HPE ProLiant/Simplivity/Synergy, Lenovo ThinkAgile, Cisco UCS).
• Customer Discovery & Consulting: Lead technical discovery sessions, workshops, and architecture deep dives with customer stakeholders, C-level executives, and IT directors to uncover business challenges.
• Proposal & RFP Response: Author comprehensive technical proposals, Statements of Work (SoW), compliance matrices, and formal responses to RFPs/RFIs/RFQs.
• Bill of Materials (BoM) Generation: Configure and validate accurate hardware and software BoMs using OEM partner sizing tools (e.g., Nutanix Sizer, VMware Sizer, Dell/HPE configurators).
• Demos & Proof of Concept (PoC): Plan, orchestrate, and validate technical demonstrations and PoCs to showcase functional and performance advantages over legacy three-tier architectures.
• OEM Partner Engagement: Maintain strategic relationships with technical specialists and channel representatives at Nutanix, VMware/Broadcom, and major server/storage OEMs.

Required Skills & Qualifications

• Virtualization & HCI Platforms: Deep architectural expertise in VMware vSphere, vSAN, and NSX, alongside hands-on design proficiency in Nutanix AOS, AHV, and Prism Central.
• Datacenter Hardware: Thorough understanding of enterprise server architecture, PCIe topologies, NVMe/SSD/HDD storage tiers, RAID controllers, and network fabric requirements (ToR switching, 10/25/100GbE, RDMA/RoCE).
• Storage Fundamentals: Firm grasp of enterprise storage paradigms, including SAN/NAS protocols (iSCSI, FC, NFS, SMB), block storage, deduplication, compression, erasure coding, snapshot management, and disaster recovery/replication.
• Workload Sizing: Proven ability to size infrastructure for specific workloads, including VDI (Citrix/Horizon), mission-critical databases (MS SQL, Oracle, SAP HANA), and modern container platforms (Kubernetes, Red Hat OpenShift).
• Soft Skills: Excellent verbal presentation skills, consultative discovery presence, and technical writing capability.

Experience & Certifications

• Experience: 5–9 years in a technical pre-sales, systems engineering, or solutions architect role within an IT systems integrator, OEM, or value-added reseller (VAR).

Preferred Certifications (any of the following is a strong plus):

• Nutanix: NCP (Nutanix Certified Professional), NCSE (Nutanix Certified Systems Engineer) Core/EUC.
• VMware: VCP-DCV, VCP-NV, VCAP-Design, or VMware Cloud Foundation specialist badges.
• Server/Storage OEM: (Dell Technologies, HPE, or Lenovo) technical sales certifications.