The job exists so West partner-led deals have a dedicated specialist Sales Engineer, and so Field CTOs are not the default resource on routine channel technical work. You are the technical counterpart to the Channel Sales Director-West. That seat owns partner recruitment, joint business plans, and channel revenue. You own the technical motion that makes those partners able to sell and prove Hammerspace.
You must live in the Western Region, California preferred.
What you will do
· Own the technical motion on West channel deals with VARs, system integrators, distributors, and technology alliances - discovery, architecture, POC design and execution, and the technical close.
· Enable partner SEs to run a routine Hammerspace POC without a Field CTO on the call.
· Be the technical counterpart to the Channel Sales Director - West on live opportunities, partner workshops, and joint pursuits.
· Work the technical side of partner-attached deals with Western RSDs and account SEs. The Channel Director is the commercial pair; account teams still own their direct book.
· Work as one book with the NA East channel specialist: shared practice, clear handoffs, no dropped coverage.
· Know when to finish the work yourself and when to pull HPC, a hardware partner, or the Director.
· Flag coverage holes and stuck POCs the same day. Program design, partner recruitment, incentives, and joint business plans stay with the Channel Sales Director and Partner Enablement.
· Deliver technical presentations, workshops, and hands-on enablement that partners can reuse with their customers.
· Translate customer and partner requirements into a Hammerspace architecture that can be deployed on existing storage, hyperscalers, and neoclouds.
· Contribute to RFP / RFI responses and competitive positioning where the channel motion needs it.
· Travel across the West for partner workshops, POCs, and key on-site evaluations (up to ~40%).
What good looks like in six months
· West channel deals do not stall for lack of a specialist Sales Engineer.
· Partners in the theater can run a routine POC without a Field CTO.
· You and the Channel Sales Director run as a commercial / technical pair, not two disconnected motions.
· East and West specialist SEs operate as a pair, not two unrelated books.
· Escalations that need the Director are visible the same day.
What you bring
Required
· You have been the technical owner on channel or partner-led storage, data-management, or file-system deals.
· You can run a POC end to end and teach a partner SE to do the same.
· Five or more years in pre-sales, solutions engineering, or a comparable technical sales role in data storage or data management.
· Working knowledge of Linux, NFS / pNFS / SMB, and enterprise NAS or parallel file environments.
· You live in the Western Region and can cover that theater remote / hybrid.
· Clear written and verbal communication with partner SEs, customer architects, and Hammerspace field and channel teams.
Nice to have
· Existing relationships in the West partner ecosystem (VARs, SIs, distributors, hardware and cloud partners).
· Familiarity with hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, OCI), neoclouds, and AI / HPC data pipelines.
· Experience working as a pair with a channel or theater counterpart.
· Knowledge of current storage architectures (NAS, SAN, object, parallel file) and of containers / Kubernetes environments.
You do not need to match every bullet. If you have done this work under another title, apply. We hire for the work, not a pedigree.
What this role does not own
· Field CTO architecture and high-complexity design leadership.
· Channel strategy, partner recruitment, onboarding, joint business plans, incentive programs, and channel revenue - that sits with the Channel Sales Director - West.
· The partner program itself - that sits with Partner Enablement.
· Product narrative and core presales content - that sits with Presales.
· New-logo hunting as a primary motion.
· NA East channel coverage - that specialist SE seat already exists.
· Named-account / geographic SE books (PacNW, TOLA, and other assigned territories). You take partner-led and partner-attached work in the West, including when an RSD brings a VAR or SI into a direct deal.
Compensation and benefits
To the extent required by state or local hiring regulations, we will consider for employment any qualified applicant, including those with arrest and conviction records, in a manner consistent with the applicable regulation.
The anticipated salary range for this role is $250,000-300,000 OTE. Actual compensation will be determined by several factors including, but not limited to, level of professional/education experience, skills/abilities, internal equity, and budgetary considerations. In addition, Hammerspace offers a broad range of health plans for medical, dental, vision, life and disability. We also offer 401k plans and flexible time off. Applications will be accepted until the position is filled.
Hammerspace is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, gender, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, military status, or national origin or any other characteristic protected under federal, state, or applicable local law.
Notice to Recruiters and Staffing Agencies:
Agencies are hereby specifically directed not to contact Hammerspace employees directly in an attempt to present candidates. To protect the interests of all parties, Hammerspace will not accept unsolicited resumes from any source other than directly from a candidate. Any unsolicited resumes sent to Hammerspace will be considered Hammerspace property. Hammerspace will not pay a fee for any placement resulting from the receipt of an unsolicited resume. Hammerspace will consider any candidate for whom an Agency has submitted an unsolicited resume to have been referred by the Agency free of any charges or fees. Agency must obtain advance written approval from Hammerspace’s recruiting function to submit resumes, and then only in conjunction with a valid fully-executed contract for service and in response to a specific job opening. Hammerspace will not pay a fee to any Agency that does not have such agreement in place.
