Solutions Engineering Manager

Job Summary ***This is a remote/home office position with occasional travel required***

The Head of Solutions Engineering for Mainframe is responsible for developing organizational and go-to-market plans to grow revenue and profitability of the IBM Z systems domain within the Modern Data Center Practice. Success in this role means achieving financial targets, growing services gross profit, and ensuring successful outcomes of services engagements provided to our clients. This is a role for an experienced technical leader with strong business acumen, experience in technical sales, and a proven track record of managing technical teams to successfully design and deploy IT solutions into modern hybrid IT enterprises.

As the Head of Solutions Engineering for Mainframe you will work with the Practice and Sales leadership to identify solutions that help clients manage the selection, design, successful deployment of IT solutions around the mainframe environment(s). Your experience with mainframe, knowledge of the industry, familiarity with leading technologies, and ability to partner with other solution providers will be essential in building successful go-to-market plans to achieve revenue and profitability goals.

Who is Mainline

For over 30 years Mainline has been assisting clients of all sizes, including Fortune 100 clients, select and successfully deploy IT solutions that power the enterprise. From deploying and securing hybrid cloud solutions, to advanced data protection techniques, to modernizing legacy environments, we act as independent advisors to tackle our clients' difficult technology problems and realize the value of their IT investments. We are looking for energetic and experienced technical leaders to contribute to our company's growth. Mainline is a great opportunity for those looking to grow their career with a company that understands and encourages harmony between family, work, and community.

What you'll be doing

You will be part of the leadership team of the Modern Data Center Practice and instrumental in developing growth and organizational plans that align to Mainline's broader go-to-market initiatives. Cross-functional collaboration with other Mainline teams (ie: Practices, Enterprise Architects, Account Executives, Marketing, etc.) will be essential for success in this role. You will also maintain close relationships with selected partners to understand product roadmaps, services offerings and major investments.

You should bring innovation, energy, and business acumen to this leadership position. A bias for action, a passion for engaging clients, strong communication and presentation skills, deep understanding of enterprise IT solutions within your domain of expertise, and high service delivery standards are essential for the role. The right individual will enjoy the energy and challenges of a high growth environment and be able to maintain a positive team culture through a period of change and growth.

What you bring to the role

• Ability to develop and operationalize growth plans including current vs future state vision, develop solutions and service offerings, and drive to meet company objectives.
• Familiarity with how modern enterprises deploy and exploit z architecture, features and capabilities to meet both legacy and new emerging workloads.
• Experience supporting sales in driving a solution sale including presentations, design of solutions, developing proposals, and scoping services to achieve the solution.
• Able to manage and motivate a technical z systems team, measure productivity, juggle competing priorities, and load balance the team members to ensure the right presales engineers can work the right sales opportunities while also ensuring that delivery engineers meet or exceed business targets
• Some familiarity with private and hybrid cloud operating models within the z space would be ideal.
• General knowledge of consumption models and "as a service" offerings from the major enterprise storage and data protection vendors.
• Able to network and recruit experienced team members and high potential contributors
• An understanding of service methodologies, services estimation, and managing service delivery issues specific to the z arena
• Experience in the approach and implementation of Mainframe Modernization projects. Relevant experience would include z cloud enablement, data virtualization and workload rehosting.
• An ability to effectively shepherd very complex delivery efforts to ensure that they complete on time, defect free and within budget.

Benefits for you

• Competitive Pay - we offer competitive pay (salary plus performance-based bonus) based on the work you do here as well as a 401K with a matching component
• Health + Wellness - Medical, Dental, Vision, and Insurance for you and your family including a telemedicine option
• Vacation and Holidays - Vacation time based on years of services plus a Holiday schedule that gives you several four day weekends each year to celebrate and enjoy time with family and friends
• Professional Development - We provide tuition reimbursement for eligible programs after 6 months of service.
• Give Back - We believe in giving back to the community. We offer paid volunteer time off so you can give back in your own way.
• Flexible work environment - Ability to manage your calendar with flexible locations and schedules. We conduct our business during Central or Eastern time zones. You can work from anywhere so long as you have the right office setup and a high-speed connection and perform the role consistent with the above time zones.

Basic Qualifications

• A BA/BS degree or equivalent experience is required
• At least 10 years experience with mainframe technologies and solutions. Must be knowledgeable with z update methodologies, performance and tuning, debugging tools/approaches, and day-to-day systems programming support.
• At least 5 years experience managing professional services in the technology space
• Demonstrable experience building, organizing, and motivating remote technical teams to achieve business objectives
• Experience participating or leading technical sales including presentations, proposals, and scoping/bidding statements of work.
• In depth implementation level knowledge of z hardware components, processor, disk, tape and network.
• Familiarity with general z data format and data migration tools. Must have generalized PPRC architecture knowledge sufficient to vet various migration strategies.
• Desirable additional technical competencies include any of the following areas, CICS, MQ, DB2, SMS, zVM, zVSE, or zLinux.
• Ability to travel for work occasionally, always with a specific purpose and agenda

How we work

Most everyone in Mainline works remotely. In this role you will work remotely as part of a dynamic and experienced leadership team. We will provide you with the digital tools to be together with your team members and to collaborate successfully even when we are apart. We also encourage in person "meet-ups" throughout the year so small groups of our team members can collaborate, connect, celebrate, and share knowledge. We like to recognize and celebrate our team members' achievements - whether that's delivering an outstanding client experience, helping the team out of a jam after hours, covering for a peer when a family situation has pulled them away, or celebrating a major career achievement or milestone.

Environmental Factors and Physical Requirements

• Physical environmental factors of this position include those found in typical business office environment or home office environment.
• Requires use of general office equipment and personal computer equipment.
• May be required to work irregular schedules including but not limited to as applicable: Nights, weekends, holidays, and/or on-call.
• Ability to travel. Various means of travel may be required, including auto and air travel. This position requires travel: Occasionally

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