Principal Technical Advocate

Principal Technical Advocate

Always open. Our code, our culture, our opportunities. Leading open innovation without limits. We are SUSE.

SUSE is a global leader in innovative, reliable, and secure enterprise open source solutions, including SUSE® Linux Suite, SUSE® Rancher Suite, SUSE® Edge Suite, and SUSE® AI Suite. More than 60% of the Fortune 500 rely on SUSE to power their mission-critical workloads, enabling them to innovate everywhere – from the data center to the cloud, to the edge and beyond.

SUSE puts the “open” back in open source, collaborating with partners and communities to give customers the agility to tackle innovation challenges today and the freedom to evolve their strategy and solutions tomorrow. For more information, visit www.suse.com.

Job Description

In this fast-moving era, technical trust is our greatest currency. As a Principal Technical Advocate, you are the technical face of SUSE’s portfolio. You are an Architect and Advocate who lives at the intersection of production-grade engineering and open-source community innovation.

You don't just "market" the portfolio; you build the technical blueprints and reference architectures that prove SUSE is the most resilient foundation for the modern enterprise. Leveraging SUSE’s products and solutions to create and deliver complex technical demonstrations.

Key Responsibilities: Leading with Technical Authority

Reference Architectural Blueprints

• Portfolio Solutions: Design and validate Reference Architectures that integrate the full SUSE stack (SLES, SUSE Rancher, SUSE Virtualization, etc.) to solve complex enterprise problems.
• The Migration Engine: Build the technical "Takeout Playbooks" that empower customers to move from legacy proprietary environments to SUSE’s open-source architecture with minimal risk and maximum performance.

Technology Advocacy

• Technical Demonstrations: Leverage SUSE’s products and solutions to create and deliver complex technical demonstrations, which includes designing and validating Reference Architectures that integrate the full SUSE stack with open-source innovation to solve complex enterprise problems, and owning the technical vision for SUSE’s global, hands-on demo environments.
• Global Stage Presence: Serve as a lead advocate at major global events (SUSECON, KubeCon, AWS re:Invent). You have the rare ability to make high-level infrastructure shifts feel tangible and exciting for a technical audience.

Portfolio & Advocacy

• Portfolio Integration: Lead "Better Together" technical validation across SLES, SUSE Rancher, and SUSE Virtualization to showcase solutions rather than products.
• Narrative Advocacy: Transform technical milestones into compelling, stage-ready stories that inspire action at major events like KubeCon and SUSECON.

Portfolio "Experience" Strategy

• "Show, Don't Tell": Own the technical vision for SUSE’s global demo environments. You design the labs and live environments where customers and partners "break and build" our tech to see its resilience firsthand.
• Executive Technical Advisor: Partner with PMM and other technology and product leaders to bridge the gap between business narrative and technical proof, acting as a trusted advisor to customer CTOs and partners during high-stakes architectural reviews.

Technical hands-on-labs

• Validation: Designing hands-on-labs and live environments where customers and partners can directly test the SUSE products and solutions, through instructor lead labs.

Skills & Experience

• The Technical Depth: 10+ years of experience in Systems Architecture, Cloud-Native Engineering, or Technical Advocacy. You must be an architect and technologist first and a marketer second.
• Stack Mastery: Deep, hands-on command of:
• Linux & Virt: Kernel-level understanding, and high-availability systems.
• Cloud Native: Kubernetes, GitOps, and Container Security.
• Emerging Tech: Practical experience with AI/ML infrastructure and GPU orchestration.
• Community Credibility: A track record of contributing to or leading within open-source projects. You understand how to influence without authority in a community setting.
• Communication Power: You are a gifted storyteller who can whiteboard a complex migration on the fly or deliver a polished, inspiring keynote to thousands.

Key skills/competency

• Systems Architecture
• Cloud-Native Engineering
• Technical Advocacy
• Open Source Contribution
• Kubernetes
• GitOps
• Container Security
• Linux Kernel
• High-Availability Systems
• AI/ML Infrastructure