Sr Solutions Engineer - Italy / Milan

At F5, we strive to bring a better digital world to life. Our teams empower organizations across the globe to create, secure, and run applications that enhance how we experience our evolving digital world. We are passionate about cybersecurity, from protecting consumers from fraud to enabling companies to focus on innovation.

Everything we do centers around people. That means we obsess over how to make the lives of our customers, and their customers, better. And it means we prioritize a diverse F5 community where each individual can thrive.

At F5, our mission is based on the fact that businesses depend on apps.

Our long-standing belief that applications are the most valuable assets of any organization in the digital age has been the foundation of our strategy to become the leader in multi-cloud application services. When you combine F5’s, expertise powering over half of the world’s applications across all types of environments, you have a company that knows how to deliver and secure more applications, and more value, than any company in the industry.

This means that we can deliver and protect applications—revenue generating, brand-anchoring applications—from the point at which they are created through to the point when consumers interact with them. In other words, from “code to customer.” This makes the combined forces of F5, essential to every digital organization in the world, including the world’s largest enterprises, service providers, financial and educational institutions, government entities, and consumer brands.

At F5 we actively build a culture that everyone can be themselves and reach their full potential.​ As a global business leader, we know diversity drives innovation, makes everything we build better for our customers, and fuels our success. We know the magic ingredient is our differences, when embraced with humility and respect. And because we know this, we believe that top talent is found in a diversity of individual backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to help us all thrive.

We currently have an opportunity for a talented Solutions Engineer (SE) to join our Italian presales team. This is a sales and technical role with focus on customer/partners and is part of the sales organization. The SE’s primary responsibility is to support the sales team with technical skills and provide technical knowledge around F5 solutions to our customers. To be effective, an SE needs to have excellent technical skills and knowledge on both F5 products and the “eco-system” that we work in. Fear not, we do provide training and certification to keep abreast with these critical skills!

The high-level objective is to achieve the allocated sales target and selling relevant F5 solutions and products to our customers business needs, in partnership with the Sales Account Manager. From our customer(s) perspective, the SE is a trusted adviser who proactively learns and understands their technical and business challenges and can propose effective solutions to mitigate their concerns/offer gainful solutions. The F5 SE not only presents the technical features but also business benefits in the Technical Value Proposition.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Responsible for upholding F5’s Business Code of Ethics and for promptly reporting violations of the Code or other company policies.

Global Responsibilities

• Provides complex design and systems engineering configurations

• Partners with Solution Architects to assist with Change Request (CR) and Customer Special Request (CSR) cases

• Maintains a high level of technical knowledge of F5 and the relevant industry

• Utilize the F5 Sales Strategy and Solution Messaging to identify solutions for customer business objectives

• Participate in the development and support of presentations for customers and partners

• Clearly articulate technical elements of the F5 value proposition to customers and partners

• Maintain knowledge of competitive landscape and share knowledge with relevant teams

• Contribute to the creation of case studies, white papers, and media articles for customers and/or partners

• Foster a collaborative, team-based environment, sharing best practices and building lasting relationships

• Effectively negotiate and pursue conflict resolution

• Actively utilize Internal SE tools like SalesForce.com, Vivun, Sharepoint, Highspot and other SE readiness programs, with the help of internal available AI oriented tools

• Partner with sales team to maintain detailed account profiles including organizational charts, customer products, strategy and technology needs

• Understand and effectively utilize F5 organizational resources

• Consistently provide world-class customer service during pre-sales, becoming a trusted advisor for the customer during the lifecycle of the project

• Lead strategic (organizational) opportunities

• Well-developed SME focus for one or more technologies and solutions (App delivery, App Security, AI, microservices environments…)

• Deliver customized product presentations using an advanced solution-based sales approach

• Proactively provide consultative support

• Create customer documentation for POC

• Understand business requirements involved with technical account strategy

• Work effectively with Engineering, Product Development, and Technical Support organizations

• Solve problems independently and creatively

• Perform other related duties as assigned

Channel support activities include:

• Support F5 channel partner sales initiatives

• Provide channel partners sustainable training on F5 solutions and competitive differentiation

• Provide channel partners technical expertise and oversight as required

• Proactively provide consultative support

• Work in collaboration with Channel and Sales management to establish channel partners and to qualify partner’s ability to sell F5 solutions

Post sales activities include:

• Understand and follow escalation process

• Partner with the F5 Technical Support and customers/partners to resolve issues

Qualifications

• Significant experience in pre-sales / Systems Engineering expertise

• Multiple years of related experience working within Public Clouds, Application Security and Application Delivery, Network Infrastructure, DevOps, SaaS, IaaS or PaaS environments. A knowledge of AI Apps and AI Environment and infrastructure is a plus.

• Linux OS System Knowledge, scripting and administration required

• Programming / DevOps Experience is a plus

• AI Apps Development is a plus

• Strong presentation, communication, account management (pre-sales) skills

• F5 core product experience or relevant experience in key competitor offerings preferred

• In-depth industry knowledge and understanding of Application Delivery and Security solutions and product offerings strongly preferred

• Effective written and oral communication skills

• First class presentation skills

• Fluent verbal and writing skills in English, native Italian speaker

Physical Demands and Work Environment

• The role is home office in Rome

• While we encourage remote/virtual meetings, the nature of the role requires travel

• This is a self-driven role, so career growth and development are available at every stage of your career

• The position reports to the Manager of Solutions Engineering team based in Milano

• Competitive pay, family friendly benefits, and cool perks

The annual on target earnings (OTE) range for this role will be EUR 112 000,00 - EUR 168 000,00: In addition to base salary, this role is also eligible to participate in F5’s commission plan. This role will be subject to a 80:20split , and subject to the terms of the applicable commission plan.

F5 is an equal opportunity employer and welcomes diversity in the workplace.

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Yello/Workday (ending with f5.com or @myworkday.com).

The Job Description is intended to be a general representation of the responsibilities and requirements of the job. However, the description may not be all-inclusive, and responsibilities and requirements are subject to change.

Please note that F5 only contacts candidates through F5 email address (ending with @f5.com) or auto email notification from Workday (ending with f5.com or@myworkday.com).

Equal Employment Opportunity

It is the policy of F5 to provide equal employment opportunities to all employees and employment applicants without regard to unlawful considerations of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, sensory, physical, or mental disability, marital status, veteran or military status, genetic information, or any other classification protected by applicable local, state, or federal laws. This policy applies to all aspects of employment, including, but not limited to, hiring, job assignment, compensation, promotion, benefits, training, discipline, and termination. F5 offers a variety of reasonable accommodations for candidates. Requesting an accommodation is completely voluntary. F5 will assess the need for accommodations in the application process separately from those that may be needed to perform the job. Request by contacting accommodations@f5.com.