Consulting Solution Architect - NetApp
CDW Corporation · Default Location, United States
The Consulting Solution Architect - NetApp is a nationally aligned technical pre-sales role within CDW’s National Specialized Presales team, with primary responsibility for advancing NetApp Keystone and Storage-as-a-Service solutions across CDW customers. The role combines deep NetApp technical expertise with consulting, financial, and consumption-model knowledge to help customers evaluate, architect, adopt, and optimize storage-as-a-service solutions.
The Consulting Solution Architect serves as a national subject matter expert for NetApp Keystone while maintaining broad expertise across NetApp storage, data management, data protection, cyber resiliency, hybrid cloud, and AI-ready infrastructure. The role works closely with customers, CDW sellers, Solution Architects, services organizations, and NetApp to identify consumption-based infrastructure opportunities, develop customer-specific architectures and financial models, scope associated services, and guide strategic opportunities throughout the sales lifecycle.
The role develops and maintains strategic relationships and serves as a trusted advisor for organizations evaluating the transition from traditional capital infrastructure purchases to flexible consumption and Storage-as-a-Service operating models. This position provides national technical leadership, accelerates Keystone pipeline development, enables the field, and helps grow CDW’s overall NetApp product and services business.
What you will do
- Serve as a national subject matter expert for NetApp Keystone and Storage-as-a-Service, supporting strategic customer opportunities across CDW.
- Identify and develop customers and workloads that are strong candidates for consumption-based storage and Keystone adoption.
- Lead customer discovery focused on capacity growth, workload requirements, performance expectations, data protection, cyber resiliency, operating models, financial objectives, and infrastructure lifecycle requirements.
- Help customers evaluate traditional capital acquisition, leasing, cloud, and Storage-as-a-Service approaches and determine where Keystone can provide business and operational value.
- Translate customer consumption patterns, growth expectations, performance requirements, and business objectives into appropriate Keystone architectures and subscription recommendations.
- Develop technical and financial recommendations addressing committed capacity, expected consumption, growth, performance service levels, subscription structure, and lifecycle requirements.
- Communicate the business value of consumption-based infrastructure to technical, financial, procurement, and executive stakeholders.
- Develop assessment and advisory offerings that help customers evaluate Storage-as-a-Service readiness and identify workloads appropriate for Keystone.
- Collaborate with customers, services teams, field Solution Architects, internal sales, and NetApp to provide consultative guidance, develop sales strategy, and scope Statements of Work.
- Design and position comprehensive NetApp solutions across Keystone, ONTAP-based storage, data protection, cyber resiliency, hybrid cloud, cloud storage, data services, and AI-ready infrastructure.
- Position Keystone as part of broader infrastructure modernization, hybrid cloud, cyber resiliency, AI, and data center transformation strategies rather than as a stand-alone procurement alternative.
- Support Keystone opportunities from qualification through discovery, consumption modeling, architecture, proposal development, implementation transition, and adoption.
- Work with CDW and NetApp stakeholders to address technical, commercial, operational, and contractual considerations affecting Keystone opportunities.
- Develop reusable Keystone discovery frameworks, qualification tools, reference architectures, financial-modeling guidance, customer presentations, proposal content, and best practices.
- Partner with business and practice leaders to develop and execute national Keystone pipeline, go-to-market, and growth strategies.
- Collaborate with services teams to identify implementation, migration, optimization, managed services, and lifecycle services that complement Keystone.
- Build and maintain strategic relationships with NetApp Keystone technical, sales, specialist, and leadership teams.
- Provide structured customer and field feedback to NetApp regarding Keystone requirements, competitive considerations, adoption barriers, and emerging use cases.
- Drive national outreach, technical enablement, and coaching that improve the ability of sellers, Solution Architects, Solution Executives, and specialists to identify and qualify Keystone opportunities.
- Develop field-ready positioning that differentiates Keystone from traditional infrastructure acquisition, public cloud consumption, leasing, and competing Storage-as-a-Service models.
- Maintain expertise across the broader NetApp portfolio so Keystone recommendations are developed in the context of each customer’s complete data infrastructure strategy.
- Collaborate across cloud, compute, networking, security, virtualization, AI, consulting, managed services, and professional services teams to develop integrated customer solutions.
What we expect of you
- Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience and 7 years in a technical, pre-sales, consulting, architecture, or post-sale delivery role; or 11 years of relevant experience. Final requirements are subject to HR validation against the approved Consulting Solution Architect profile.
- Strong knowledge of enterprise storage, data management, data protection, cyber resiliency, hybrid cloud, and infrastructure modernization.
- Demonstrated understanding of consumption-based technology models, subscription services, Storage-as-a-Service, or cloud economics.
- Ability to conduct technical and business discovery and translate customer requirements into architectures, consumption models, recommendations, and actionable roadmaps.
- Strong business and financial acumen with the ability to communicate CapEx versus OpEx considerations, consumption economics, infrastructure lifecycle costs, and business value.
- Ability to engage effectively with technical, operational, procurement, financial, and executive customer stakeholders.
- Experience developing comprehensive solutions that address technical requirements, business challenges, operational objectives, and financial considerations.
- Strong consulting, facilitation, presentation, and executive communication skills.
- Demonstrated ability to collaborate across sales, engineering, services, finance, partner, and delivery organizations.
- Ability to influence opportunity strategy and build consensus around complex technical and commercial solutions.
- Ability to develop repeatable methodologies, customer deliverables, enablement materials, and best practices.
- Motivated, self-starting, and able to independently perform high-quality work with minimal guidance across a national coverage model.
- Willingness to travel up to 25% or as needed.
- Preferred qualifications:
- Hands-on experience designing, positioning, selling, or supporting NetApp Keystone Storage-as-a-Service solutions.
- Experience developing Keystone consumption models, including capacity requirements, workload growth, performance service levels, and subscription considerations.
- Experience articulating Storage-as-a-Service economics and comparing CapEx, OpEx, public cloud, leasing, and consumption-based infrastructure models.
- Experience supporting complex consumption-based infrastructure agreements or multi-year technology subscriptions.
- Strong knowledge of NetApp ONTAP, AFF, StorageGRID, hybrid cloud, data protection, cyber resiliency, and related NetApp technologies.
- Current NetApp technical certifications aligned to the role and CDW partner requirements.
- Experience architecting NetApp environments spanning enterprise storage, hybrid cloud, virtualization, containers, data pr