Manager, Commercial Solutions Engineering, Bay Area

Manager, Commercial Solutions Engineering at NetApp

Own Every Moment at NetApp

At NetApp, your ideas power innovation. We lead in intelligent data infrastructure—delivering unified storage, integrated data services, and solutions that help organizations unlock the full potential of their data, from AI to multicloud. Ready to innovate and contribute to our path to $10B? Here, you'll collaborate with passionate teams, tackle real-world challenges, and see your impact in how customers transform and grow. If you're ready to bring curiosity, creativity, and drive to every moment, NetApp is where your journey begins.

LOCATION

This role will manage and lead our Bay Area Commercial Solutions Engineering team. Candidates must be located in the San Francisco Bay Area. Significant regional travel is expected. Candidates located outside of the region will be automatically disqualified.

Job Summary

We’re looking for a Manager of Commercial Solutions Engineering to lead one of NetApp’s fastest-paced and most strategically important commercial districts. This is a player-coach leadership role built for someone who genuinely loves the pre-sales motion, someone energized by technical discovery, competitive deal strategy, coaching teams through high-volume sales cycles, and building strong partnerships across sales and channel ecosystems. You’ll lead a team of Commercial Solutions Engineers supporting Commercial Account Managers across a broad and highly active customer base throughout the Bay Area. Unlike traditional enterprise models, this environment moves fast. Your team will support a large number of accounts across multiple sales reps, balancing install base growth, whitespace opportunities, partner engagement, and customer expansion simultaneously.

The right leader for this role understands how to operate at scale without losing quality. You know how to help teams prioritize, simplify complexity, stay operationally sharp, and win consistently in highly competitive environments. You’re comfortable being in the field, in customer conversations, in partner strategy sessions, and in the middle of high-energy deal cycles alongside your team. This is a leadership opportunity for someone who thrives in high-performance cultures, believes accountability and development go hand in hand, and wants to build a team that customers, partners, and sales leaders trust deeply.

What You'll Do

• Lead, develop, and inspire a team of Commercial Solutions Engineers supporting a high-volume, fast-moving territory across the Bay Area.
• Partner closely with Commercial sales leadership on territory planning, pipeline strategy, forecasting cadence, and execution across a broad account base.
• Operate as a true player-coach leader, actively participating in customer meetings, partner engagements, executive briefings, and critical deal cycles alongside your team.
• Drive technical sales execution across the region, helping SEs navigate discovery, demonstrations, competitive positioning, proof-of-concept engagements, and customer adoption strategies.
• Coach SEs on prioritization and account coverage in a highly transactional environment where speed, responsiveness, and organizational discipline matter.
• Build and maintain strong relationships across the channel ecosystem, including VARs, distributors, and strategic partners, as this team’s success is heavily driven through partner engagement.
• Maintain a strong operational pulse on pipeline health, technical coverage, forecast alignment, and team execution without creating unnecessary process overhead.
• Partner cross-functionally with Sales Operations, Product Management, Marketing, Customer Success, Finance, Human Resources, and Partner teams to remove obstacles and improve field execution.
• Own the full talent lifecycle for your organization, including recruiting, onboarding, coaching, performance management, succession planning, and development of top SE talent.
• Lead performance conversations with clarity and consistency using NetApp’s High Growth Principles, setting a high bar while helping individuals continue to grow professionally.
• Identify and develop future leaders within the organization while fostering a culture of accountability, collaboration, curiosity, and continuous improvement.
• Help your team simplify complex technology conversations for customers operating in one of the world’s most innovative and competitive technology markets.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in Solutions Engineering, Systems Engineering, Sales Engineering, or technical pre-sales roles within enterprise infrastructure, cloud, storage, or data management environments.
• 3+ years of experience managing or leading pre-sales technical teams with direct accountability for team performance, execution, and regional business outcomes.
• Strong understanding of commercial sales motions, including high-volume account coverage models, channel-led sales execution, and fast-paced customer engagement cycles.
• Deep familiarity with enterprise infrastructure technologies including storage, hybrid cloud, data management, AI infrastructure, cybersecurity, virtualization, or adjacent technologies.
• Experience working with and through channel partners, distributors, and strategic alliances to drive customer outcomes and scale market impact.
• Strong operational and organizational instincts, with the ability to manage competing priorities, maintain forecast visibility, and drive accountability across a distributed team.
• Excellent coaching and communication skills, capable of influencing sales leaders, mentoring SE talent, and building trust with technical and executive customer stakeholders alike.
• Experience hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing technical talent in competitive technology markets.
• Ability to thrive in fast-moving environments where priorities shift quickly and teams are expected to operate with urgency, adaptability, and strong collaboration.
• NetApp experience or familiarity with NetApp’s portfolio and go-to-market motion is strongly preferred.
• Willingness to travel throughout the region to support customers, partners, team development, and field engagement opportunities.
• A genuine passion for the pre-sales world, the technology, the people, the competition, and the energy that comes from helping teams win together.

Compensation:

The target salary range for this position is 287,300 - 371,800 USD. The salary offered will be determined by the candidate's location, qualifications, experience, and education and may be outside of this range. The range is based on 'On Target Earnings’ (OTE) representing the total potential earnings, which is the sum of the base salary and potential commission earned when performance targets are achieved. Final compensation packages are competitive and in line with industry standards, reflecting a variety of factors, and include a comprehensive benefits package. This may cover Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement or Pension Plans, Paid Time Off, various Leave options, employee stock purchase plan, and/or restricted stocks (RSU’s). These offerings are subject to regional variations and governed by local laws, regulations, and company policies. We will provide detailed information about the specific benefits for your region during the recruitment process.

At NetApp, we embrace a hybrid working environment designed to strengthen connection, collaboration, and culture for all employees. This means that most roles will have some level of in-office and/or in-person expectations, which will be shared during the recruitment process.

Equal Opportunity Employer:

NetApp is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination based on age, race, color, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, disability or genetic information, pregnancy, protected veteran status, and any other protected classification.

Why You'll Thrive at NetApp

At NetApp, you won't wait for the perfect moment—you'll make it. The early planning, the extra thought, the bold idea that turns good into great: That's how our people operate and how we continue to push the boundaries of data infrastructure. NetApp is the trusted partner for organizations transforming data into opportunity. As the only enterprise-grade storage service natively embedded in Google Cloud, AWS, and Microsoft Azure, we empower customers to run everything from traditional workloads to enterprise AI with unmatched performance, resilience, and security.

Our culture

We celebrate mold breakers, bold thinkers, and problem solvers. We reward initiative, impact, and ownership. We provide flexibility so you can balance professional ambition with your personal life. Here, differences are not just welcomed—they drive everything we do.

If you're ready to innovate, rise to the challenge, and own every moment - make your next move your best one. Apply now.

Key skills/competency

• Manager, Commercial Solutions Engineering
• Solutions Engineering
• Sales Engineering
• Technical Pre-sales
• Team Leadership
• Enterprise Infrastructure
• Cloud Solutions
• Data Management
• Channel Partnerships
• Customer Engagement