Senior Designated Support Engineer

DDN Storage is seeking a Senior Designated Support Engineer to join our dynamic team of passionate customer-enabling technologists!

This is an incredible opportunity to be part of a company that has been at the forefront of AI and high-performance data storage innovation for over two decades. DDN Storage is a global market leader renowned for powering many of the world's most demanding AI and HPC data centers, in industries ranging from life sciences and healthcare to financial services, autonomous cars, Government, academia, research and manufacturing  

"DDN's A3I solutions are transforming the landscape of AI infrastructure." – IDC 

“The real differentiator is DDN. I never hesitate to recommend DDN. DDN is the de facto name for AI Storage in high performance environments” - Marc Hamilton, VP, Solutions Architecture & Engineering | NVIDIA 

DDN Storage is the global leader in AI and multi-cloud data management at scale. Our cutting-edge storage and data management solutions are designed to accelerate AI workloads, enabling organizations to extract maximum value from their data. With a proven track record of performance, reliability, and scalability, DDN Storage empowers businesses to tackle the most challenging AI and data-intensive workloads with confidence. 

Our success is driven by our unwavering commitment to innovation, customer-centricity, and a team of passionate professionals who bring their expertise and dedication to every project. This is a chance to make a significant impact at a company that is shaping the future of AI and data management. 

Our commitment to innovation, customer success, and market leadership makes this an exciting and rewarding role for a driven professional looking to make a lasting impact in the world of AI and data storage. 

As a Senior Designated Support Engineer at DDN Storage, you will be responsible for delivering a 'pristine experience on DDN’s technologies' by utilizing your technical expertise, understanding the customer ecosystem, to solving customer’s most demanding business needs. We are looking for highly skilled, well rounded technical resources to cover our most demanding customers.

Duties and Responsibilities:

The essential duties and responsibilities include but are not limited to: 

• Ability to work Flexible Weekly shifts, which may include weekends.
• Focused on DDN’s largest and most critical customers
• Expected to work directly with customer administrative staff to solve issues
• Must be willing to quickly engage with customers to resolve problems
• Resolve Lustre file system issues on large, scalable customer systems and ensure customer satisfaction.
• Create test plans and procedures for customer upgrades and troubleshooting.
• Work with engineering for enhancing product quality using customer feedback and use cases.
• Review product documentation, both for internal and external customer needs.
• Work with the DDN Education team to provide training where needed.
• Assist in development/maintenance of internal tools.
• Demonstrate a thorough technical understanding of clients’ needs.
• Clearly communicate complex technical topics to the varied knowledge levels of customers.
• Develop positive and trustworthy relationships with customers.
• Ability to multi-task and manage competing priorities, ensuring all objectives are accomplished.
• While this is a remote working position, it does require some travel and occasion customer on-site working.
• As this is a customer facing role it requires flexibility; and also includes a one-week on-call team rotation

Skills and Experience:

This employee must have considerable knowledge of parallel file system operations, disk-based storage systems, operating systems (mostly Linux), networking and troubleshooting technique.  Required are strong communication skills, including; ability to connect with customers via phone, virtual meetings and in written correspondences.

Minimum Requirements: 

• Must have 7+ years’ experience in a similar technical role.
• Experience supporting post-sales efforts is essential to success in this position.
• Proven in-depth technical knowledge and problem analysis skills.
• Excellent customer interfacing skills.
• Solutions orientated with an aptitude from analytical thinking and problem solving.
• Proven skills and a solid team player.
• Good verbal and written communication skills (English, second language beneficial).

Essential Technical Requirements

• 7+ years of experience working with Lustre Parallel Filesystems; administration/implementation/support.
• Strong knowledge of Linux architecture and fundamentals.
• Good understanding of the technical fundamentals of the system infrastructure including
  • Storage systems
  • Linux operating system
  • networking
  • parallel file systems
• Demonstrable understanding of data storage concepts: RAID/Erasure Coding, block storage, parallel file systems, etc.
• Understanding of networking concepts: Infiniband, Ethernet, IP, TCP, routing, etc.

Preferred Technical requirements include:

• Other parallel filesystems such as SpectrumScale or StorNext
• Experience reading, writing and debugging shell and Python or Perl scripts
• Networking (InfiniBand and Ethernet Definite Plus)
• Experience working with NAS protocols: NFS, CIFS, SMB, S3, FTP, sftp
• Experience working with authentication protocols (ActiveDirectory, LDAP)
• Extensive experience in debugging and troubleshooting Infiniband and Ethernet networks.

DDN has a very strong orientation towards these 4 characteristics and any successful employee will demonstrate these capabilities:  

• Self-Starter - Takes independent action to identify and solve problems. Seeks out relevant information needed to make decisions. Gets involved with new initiatives. 
• Success/Achievement Orientation - Delivers quality results consistently. Targets, achieves (or exceeds) measurable results. Sets challenging goals, focuses on critical priorities, and is accountable. 
• Problem Solving - Recognizes problems and responds with a systematic assessment that identifies and addresses cause of issue. Practical, realistic, and resourceful. 
• Innovative - Builds and improves key business processes that enhance the effectiveness of DDN. Generates new ideas, challenges the status quo, and solves problems creatively.
•  DataDirect Networks, Inc. is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender, sex stereotyping, sexual orientation, national origin, disability, protected Veteran Status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state, or local law.