Datacenter Solutions Architect
Location: Remote (Canada-Wide)
Opportunity at Microserve
Position Purpose and Summary:
Microserve is looking for a On-premise Datacenter Cloud Solutions Architect who would be responsible for the strategic pre-sales, including presentations, lunch and learns, webinars, and solution design with our clients from small business through to enterprise clients. This role can be performed remotely within Western Canada (but ideally based near one of our offices in Burnaby, Calgary, Edmonton, or Victoria) and report into our Manager of Professional Services.
In this role the Solution Architect performs hands-on technical discovery and assessment, creates technology presentations, creates solution budgets and estimates in the form of statements of work, and presents business cases for technology solutions and projects; either through webinars, in-person events, or client presentations. The architect then guides clients through technology roadmaps, project budgeting, and plays an active role hands-on during implementation of cloud solutions. The cloud solutions architect is a future thinking technology leader that takes a broad view of the client and focuses on business and IT alignment that makes sense based on client size and technology dependence.
Key Areas of Accountability:
-
Work closely with Microserve sales account executives to identify, propose, and implement best-fit technical solutions to support client needs
-
Engage clients directly and confidently to understand their specific environments and business requirements, providing clear guidance as a trusted advisor to their IT departments
-
Provide planning, design, and technical architecture of IT strategy for our clients. This includes developing technology roadmaps with business case justification and budget proposals.
-
Provide expert advice to clients on technologies that can best support business objectives
-
Engage in formal planning, requirements gathering and budgeting for clients
-
Have a broad understanding of technology and a deep understanding of Microserve’ s solution portfolio. You combine your knowledge of technology and security to maximize the value of solutions for our clients by effectively translating how our solutions can be leveraged to achieve strategic business goals.
-
Develop technology risk planning and management strategies for our managed services clients that help reduce overall risk and increase ROI of in-use technologies.
-
Define and monitor the implementation of IT and security controls, governance, and compliance for our clients
-
Develop innovative solutions and research technologies on behalf of client organizations and their individual needs, including documenting and presenting business cases to achieve buy in
-
Constant focus on continuous improvement and proactively bringing ideas for new technologies to our clients to jointly explore potential opportunities to improve; presenting business case(s) for implementation to Microserve and client leadership, as and when required.
-
Continual training and certification; in this role, Microserve will help you stay up to date with relevant private and public cloud certifications related to our partner competencies with vendors such as Microsoft, Dell, HPE, or Lenovo.
-
Analyzing requests and specific business needs presented by clients and account managers and then researching, recommending, designing, and implementing technology solutions as per the agreed technology plan
-
Overseeing IT related project initiatives for clients; including scope development in alignment with business requirements, functional deliverables, schedule and milestone planning, project execution, and post-mortems and lessons learned.
-
Supporting clients alongside our Cybersecurity specialist with oversight on their cyber security governance, controls, policies and compliance.
-
Supporting clients and our internal technical teams with oversight on the technological infrastructure for their organizations; ensuring optimal performance and implementation of best practices.
-
Developing and implementing the underlying organization’s Disaster Recovery Plans and data archiving strategies as they pertain to IT for applicable clients; based on business requirements
-
Developing and managing a budget for client technology initiatives and our professional services
-
Creating status reports and presenting findings to senior management on an as required basis.
Requirements:
-
8+ years of hands-on Information Technology experience; a large percentage of which focused in consulting across a diverse set of clients and technologies.
-
Demonstrated presales, design, and implementation experience with and a passion for On-Premises Datacenter Infrastructure (E.g. HPE Greenlake, Dell APEX, Lenovo TrueScale)
-
Up-to-date expertise and certifications related to specific software/hardware manufacturers would be highly desired. Some relevant examples include: VMware (VCP/VCAP-DCD/VCAP-DCA/VCDX/VCP-DT), HPE ATP – Greenlake Administrator), SAN/NAS Storage (experience with HPE, Dell, Lenovo preferred), or Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect,
-
2+ years experience in creating and presenting long-term strategic technology roadmaps and detailed IT budgets
-
Experience and success in developing and presenting technology business cases, decision requests, project effort estimates, and project charters
-
Demonstrated ability to effectively communicate with and formally present to individuals at all levels of the organization, including translating technically complex information to varying technical audiences.
-
Demonstrated success in both designing and hands-on implementation of technology solutions and related systems, and processes for a variety of organizations both large and small
-
Practical and current knowledge of IT systems such as Hybrid Cloud (specific with Azure), M365, and security operations and a demonstrated ability to resolve complex technology related issues.
-
Ability to manage and maintain private and confidential information with a high degree of professionalism.
-
Demonstrated capacity for forming and advancing relationships with both internal and external stakeholders.
-
Strong resourcefulness, problem solving and project management skills.
-
Successful completion of a Criminal Background check
-
Strong written and oral communication skills.
-
Experienced innovative thinker with proven results in a fast-paced environment.
-
Intellectual curiosity and passion for technology to stay current and informed on industry trends.
Desirables:
-
Post-Secondary Certificate or Degree in an IT related field as well as up to date certifications such as Azure Solutions Architect Expert, Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert
-
Experience in consulting to implement Microsoft 365 Modern Workplace technologies (E.g., MS Teams, SharePoint/OneDrive, Power Platform, Exchange Online); strong ability to provide guidance on best practices and design of solutions
- Previous IT Management or IT Leadership experience
About us:
At Microserve, we are an industry leader in providing technology solutions to public and private sector clients across Western Canada. Headquartered in Burnaby, BC, with offices in, Victoria, Edmonton, and Calgary, we employ over 550 team members, and are one of the largest technology solutions providers, recognized for our ability to deliver and innovate to meet the changing needs of our clients.