Director Cloud Native Architects, Strategic Accounts

We’re in an unbelievably exciting area of tech and are fundamentally reshaping the data storage industry. Here, you lead with innovative thinking, grow along with us, and join the smartest team in the industry.

This type of work—work that changes the world—is what the tech industry was founded on. So, if you're ready to seize the endless opportunities and leave your mark, come join us.

THE ROLE Director Strategics CNA (EMEA) leads and develops a team of Strategic CNAs and sets the standard for technical execution, executive engagement, and adoption outcomes across a defined list of EMEA Strategic accounts. The role is accountable for building a repeatable operating system that improves deal quality, increases opportunity predictability, and drives measurable revenue impact (ARR/NRR) in partnership with the Theater Strategics Sales organisation, Product teams, and regional stakeholders.

Success is reflected across People / Process / Partnership / Product , deliberately prioritised to maximise the Director’s most constrained resource: time .

• People: Building, developing, and inspiring a high-performing team with strong technical credibility and ownership.
• Process: Applying context and rigor in ways that improve focus, decision-making, and execution without creating unnecessary overhead.
• Partnership: Strengthening collaboration with sales, product, and partner stakeholders to improve alignment and shared outcomes.
• Product: Maintaining sufficient product understanding to guide technical decisions, shape meaningful feedback, and support effective field execution.

Scaling model (System Builder): The Director scales impact through a disciplined cadence, clear ownership across a small team, and account-domain expertise, not by attending more internal meetings.

Named Strategic accounts are complex global enterprises (multiple geos/BUs/platform teams). Success requires coordinated engagement across regional and global stakeholders, consistent architecture messaging, repeatable plays, and disciplined resource allocation. Due to the geographic complexity of these named strategic accounts they will require effective collaboration with Americas Strategics peers.

Role Scope

• Theater: EMEA Strategics
• Builds and leads: CNA team pooled to deliver outcomes in aligned EMEA Strategic accounts
• Role type: People manager + overall technical sales account oversight

Revenue Alignment

• This role is directly assigned to the Theater Strategics Portworx and Pure Storage Cloud quota and is expected to meet and exceed TCV Sales goals.
• The Director is accountable for measurable increases in ARR and NRR across a defined list of EMEA Strategic accounts.
• CNAs have primary account assignments while also being goaled on overall Theater quota performance, ensuring the team operates as a focused unit without losing shared accountability.

What You'll Do

• Build, Develop, & Inspire a Team of Top Performers:

• Hire/onboard quickly with clear expectations, coaching, and development plans.
• Build and maintain a strong bench of Technical Sales talent aligned to current and future needs.
• Partner with recruiting to attract, hire, and onboard high-quality candidates in a timely manner.
• Coach and develop direct reports through regular feedback, mentorship, and clear expectations.
• Curate & maintain Individual Development Plans that support both role effectiveness and long-term career growth.
• Foster an inclusive, collaborative team environment that encourages learning, ownership, and accountability.
• Establish a coverage model that assigns primary accounts and defines domain ownership within global accounts (BU/geo/platform), with explicit escalation criteria.
• Support personnel development in alignment with HR guidelines and company values.

• Provide Sales Process Oversight, Guidance, and Feedback:

• Guide CNAs in applying the Technical Sales Process to improve opportunity focus, deal quality, and execution.
• Use opportunity data as a decision-support and coaching tool, not an activity-reporting mechanism.
• Drive disciplined prioritization and disqualification to protect scarce CNA capacity.

• Co-seller + partner alignment that improves outcomes:

• Run a regular cadence with co-seller Technical Sales leaders focused on meaningful changes in status, risk, sentiment, velocity, and where technical leadership removes friction.
• Co-sponsor targeted Portworx and Pure Storage Cloud efforts for a small number of priority customers where technical leadership materially influences outcomes for the entire Pure Storage portfolio.
• Establish recurring partner cadences focused on progression, readiness, pipeline health, and risk reduction.

• Coordinate Feature & Solution Feedback with Business Units :

• Lead bi-weekly working sessions with Product Managers and peers to align on releases, readiness, and feature evolution. Bring an expert vertical view from the Strategics verticals into the feedback loops. Manufacturing, Telco and Financials.
• Provide synthesized insight tied to real deployment/adoption patterns (patterns > isolated requests).
• Prioritize RFEs for clarity and meaningful customer impact over volume/noise.

Expected Impact & Success Criteria

Top-level (quota + retention + growth)

• Meet/exceed EMEA Theater Strategics Portworx quota and TCV Sales goals.
• Meet/exceed EMEA Theater Strategics PSC quota and TCV Sales goals.
• Increase ARR and NRR across the defined EMEA Strategic account list, with clear measurement/attribution through identified expansion lanes and adoption outcomes.
• Improve predictability: fewer late-stage surprises; better early qualification; stronger validation-to-close consistency.

What You Bring

• Creativity, empathy, an open mind, curiosity and a desire for continuous learning
• Pre-sales experience is required
• 5 or more years of relevant experience, mixed among technology, design, and communications required. Experience supporting the sales of enterprise storage, networking, systems, cloud, or software to enterprise accounts preferred
• Deep understanding of the architecture, design and implementation of multi-tiered client/server and web-based computing solutions
• Prior experience in targeting new prospects and converting them into clients
• Contribute significant portions and/or lead responses to RFPs, RFQs and RFIs
• Superior knowledge of current and emerging storage architectures (FC, iSCSI, NAS, OSD, SAN)
• Linux, NFS file systems and Linux distributed network environment
• Familiarity with AWS, Azure, GCP a plus
• Installation/configuration of distributed computing, multiprocessing, virtual memory subsystem, storage subsystems architecture, shared memory architectures, cache architectures, windowing systems
• Familiarity with containers, k8s and microservices architectures a plus
• Strong knowledge of digital transformation to a Cloud Native architecture, On-Prem, Public Cloud, Provisioning Automation, and Containers
• Knowledge of VMware, Local Area Networking, Ethernet, TCP/IP and general networking
• Excellent verbal and written interpersonal skills
• BS in CS, EE or other technical degree and/or equivalent experience
• Must have a familiarity with modern web architecture a plus (LAMP stack, scale-out vs scale-up architectures, AWS well-architected framework, microservices architecture)
• Curiosity and passion around technology and explaining and showing new technology platforms and concepts to customers
• We are primarily an in-office environment and therefore, you will be expected to work from the Staines or London office in compliance with Everpure’s policies, unless you are on PTO, or work travel, or other approved leave.Familiarity with storage-intensive applications and their requirements such as structured databases (SQL, Oracle) is highly desirable

What You Can Expect From Us

• Innovation: We celebrate those who think critically, like a challenge, and aspire to be trailblazers.
• Growth: We give you the space and support to grow along with us and to contribute to something meaningful. We have been named Fortune's Best Workplaces in Technology™, Fortune's Best Workplaces in the Bay Area™, and certified as a Great Place to Work®!
• Team: We build each other up and set aside ego for the greater good.

And because we understand the value of bringing your full and best self to work, we offer a variety of perks to manage a healthy balance, including flexible time off, wellness resources, and company-sponsored team events. Check out purebenefits.com for more information.

Accommodations And Accessibility Candidates with disabilities may request accommodations for all aspects of our hiring process. For more on this, contact us at TA-Ops@purestorage.com if you’re invited to an interview.

Our Commitment To a Strong And Inclusive Team We’re forging a future where everyone finds their rightful place and where every voice matters. Where uniqueness isn’t just accepted but embraced. That’s why we are committed to fostering the growth and development of every person, cultivating a sense of community through our Employee Resource Groups and advocating for inclusive leadership.

Everpure is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or any other characteristic legally protected by the laws of the jurisdiction in which you are being considered for hire.

Join us and bring your best. Bring your bold. Pure and simple.