Storage & Compute Architect
World Wide Technology
- Saint Louis, MO
- Permanent
- Full-time
- Pre/Post sales consultant to WWT’s Enterprise clients.
- Translate business outcomes to technical solutions
- Review client deliverables to identify opportunities to improve quality through training, mentoring, product offering improvement, and talent acquisition
- Monitor infrastructure performance and troubleshoot problem areas as needed
- Conduct research on advanced and next-generation compute, storage, and networking infrastructure to remain abreast of developments in the industry
- System Design: Design and architect high-performance computing systems, including hardware, software, and networking components, to meet the organization's compute requirements
- Storage Design: Design and architect storage solutions to meet the organization's data storage and retrieval requirements, considering factors such as capacity, performance, reliability, and scalability.
- Storage Provisioning: Provision storage resources, including SAN, NAS, and object storage systems, to meet the data storage requirements of various applications and workloads.
- Data Protection: Implement data protection mechanisms, including backup, replication, and disaster recovery solutions, to ensure the integrity and availability of critical data.
- Performance Optimization: Optimize storage performance by analyzing workload characteristics, identifying bottlenecks, and implementing solutions to improve throughput and latency.
- Documentation: Create and maintain documentation for computing systems, including architectural diagrams, configuration guides, and operational procedures.
- Work with Customers, Technical Solutions Architects, Client Services Executives, and Account teams to identify customer’s desired business and technical outcomes.
- Identify required resource types, levels of effort, and work breakdown structures required to formulate high-quality statements of work.
- Conduct project launch workshops and project scoping workshops prior to delivery engagement.
- Proper management, maintenance, and adherence to SLAs of assigned pre-sales opportunities within Salesforce as defined in SFDC guidelines.
- Build and maintain strong relationships with delivery management, project management, and engineering teams nationally.
- Actively participate and support delivery engineers throughout all phases of a project, including Project Launch Workshops, Kickoff calls, lessons learned, etc.
- Review client deliverables to identify opportunities to improve quality through training, mentoring, product offering improvement, and talent acquisition.
- Provide QA, escalation support, and mentoring for delivery teams.
- Development of implementation and backout plans.
- Interview delivery engineering candidates to determine proper technical and personality fit based on the project and customer’s specific needs.
- Ensure standards and delivery methodologies are being followed, and appropriate internal and/or partner resources are available to meet the current and future demands of the project.
- Create High-Level Design (HLD) and Low-Level Design (LLD) documentation.
- Create change/cut window Method of Procedure (MOP) documentation.
- Perform advanced engineering services supporting the engineering delivery team when necessary.
- Champion the delivery of complex Storage & Compute solutions.
- Provide technical guidance, knowledge transfers, and mentorship as required.
- Responsible for creating documentation for Storage & Compute technologies.
- Perform SME and hands-on delivery engagements as needed.
- Participate in customer-facing escalations.
- Must be able to identify, manage, and resolve conflict.
- Must be a strong, creative problem solver.
- Responsible for the identification of additional business opportunities.
- Must have the ability to identify and address risk before problems occur.
- Must understand the technologies in play and how they help meet customer business goals.
- Must have the ability to lead a team of delivery engineers.
- Expert in design, implementation, and management of physical and virtual environments including VMware, Hyper-V, KVM and Nutanix.
- Build and administer storage solutions, including direct attached, SAN, NAS, and cloud storage, ensuring data availability and integrity.
- Monitor system performance, troubleshoot issues, and ensure efficient operation of compute and storage resources.
- Conduct capacity planning and provide recommendations for infrastructure enhancements.
- Stay current with emerging technologies and industry trends to drive innovation and efficiency.
- Design and implement advanced functions related to compute resources (servers, virtual machines, containers)
- Be proficient in storage systems including file, object storage, block and databases.
- Optimize data storage and retrieval mechanisms for performance, scalability, and cost-effectiveness.
- Drive architecture discussions related to cloud security, privacy, and compliance.
- Consider scalability, performance, agility, and high availability/disaster recovery (HA/DR) aspects.
- Strong knowledge of server hardware, virtualization platforms, and storage technologies.
- Experience with cloud computing services (e.g. AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) is advantageous
- Certifications in relevant technologies are highly desirable.
- Proven track record of successfully managing and delivering complex IT projects on time and within budget, utilizing programmatic approaches e.g. Agile or Waterfall
- Demonstrated ability to design, develop, and implement scalable, reliable, and efficient technical solutions.
- Skilled in navigating uncertain and rapidly changing environments, with a proven ability to use data to identify core issues and make informed recommendations
- Exceptional problem-solving skills, with a knack for breaking down complex situations into manageable components, facilitating clear decision-making processes and action plans.
- Strong communication abilities especially when faced with incomplete information or shifting priorities.
- Expertise in aligning technical solutions with business objectives, demonstrating a deep understanding of how technology can drive efficiency, growth, and competitive advantage.
- Minimum five years (5) of industry experience in IT infrastructure architecture development and technology consulting, advisory, or professional services.
- Extensive large scale and high-performance computing experience required
- Highly Skilled in at least one (1) of the following with more being preferred: Nvidia GPU/DGX computing and/or other similar solutions, InfiniBand networking, Red Hat or other Linux distributions, infrastructure automation solutions.
- Experience with Kubernetes or other containerization solutions
- Experience with automation using Ansible, Terraform or other orchestration tools.
- Working knowledge of cloud interconnectivity or multicloud technologies (Equinix, Megaport, Aviatrix etc) is advantageous.
- Strong interpersonal, written, and oral communication skills with the ability to work well in a collaborative environment.
- Able to conduct research into high performance computing issues and products as required.
- Highly self-motivated and directed, with keen attention to detail.
- Able to effectively prioritize tasks in a high-pressure environment.
- Strong customer service orientation with proven analytical and problem-solving abilities.
- Bachelor’s Degree in Business or Technology focused discipline
- Demonstrated technical consulting experience in one or more vertical sectors: government, public sector, higher education, finance, health care, technology, or other commercial.