Top Global consulting firm has an opening for a Solutions Architect - Storage in Chicago, IL. JOB SUMMARY: The Storage Solution Architect (SSA) focuses on presales capabilities and delivering a wide variety of storage core advisory offerings including assessment and design level document deliverables as well as roadmap projects focused on developing storage and backup & recovery solutions for our customers. An SSA is expected to demonstrate expert competencies in presales support including positioning, estimating, creating/refining statements of work and closing advisory offering opportunities as well as the ability to deliver each of the core advisory offerings directly to the customer. This includes excellent presentation skills, technical documentation, and consulting service delivery for both Enterprise Storage and Enterprise Backup & Recovery practices. The SSA is a subject matter expert in their designated solution focus area and must be able to lead complex storage designs, facilitate project progress and provide oversight support from the inception of opportunity pursuit to the completion of delivery. ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Duties and responsibilities include the following as well as other additional areas assigned for billable and non-billable technical consulting and support services: Facilitate advisory engagement with customer to meet quality/scope expectations and adhering time objectives Lead advisory offering including scheduling, facilitating, documentation, and final presentation Achieve high level of Customer Satisfaction on all consulting engagements by advocating process with project managers and technical consultants involved in solution delivery Support account managers in presales activities and maintain SLA for response times Articulate architectural/design concepts to product specialists and delivery consultants for further development Manage technical consultants through project delivery life cycle Contribute in the development and delivery of solutions for focus area Demonstrate ability to assemble customer ready final document deliverable from multiple project team members Provide leadership and research capabilities supporting technical recommendations within advisory deliverables Develop strong customer relationships and trust to secure future business Contribute and develop Best Practices, strategies, policies, methodologies and documentation sets Assist, contribute in the development Statements of Work, proposals, Level of Effort, work breakdown schedules and engagement pricing Professional and effective communication skills with written and verbal dialog to internal and external technical and management staff Stay current with developments in the server and storage industry through professional associations, trade journals, networking and formalized training. Primary Duty Must have strong abilities to assist sales representative in services solution development, ability to demonstrate and communicate the solution, statement-of-work development, and proof of concept to customers. Candidates must be flexible and able to work in pre-sales design, project implementation, post-sales support and must demonstrate strong customer-service skills with clients and co-workers to help position Forsythe as a valued partner and trusted advisor. EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE Four year college or university program certificate; or two to four years related experience and/or training; or equivalent combination of education and experience. Vendor certifications, professional associations QUALIFICATIONSThe competencies listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill sets, abilities desired in order to be successful in this role: Excellent verbal communication skills Excellent time management skills Excellent documentation and presentation skills Expert Experience with Powerpoint, Word and Visio Experience with Storage Area Networks (SAN), Network Attached Storage (NAS), Storage Resource Management (SRM) Project Management Institute (PMI, PMP), Tape Area Networks (TAN), Backup & Recovery (BR), Disaster Recovery (DR), Business Continuance (BC), Information Life Cycle Management, Hierarchical Storage management 2 years experience of storage vendor hardware: EMC2, Network Appliance, Hitachi, HP, IBM, Sun, Compaq 2 years background in sever multi-vendor environment with experience in multiple UNIX and Windows operating systems. Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, Linux, Windows NT 4.0, Windows XP and 2000 2 years experience in Storage Area Network and Network Attached Storage fiber channel switch/director hardware and management software: Brocade, McData, Cisco 2 years experience in storage vendor software: - EMC: TimeFinder, ECC Open Edition, SRDF, Navisphere product suite, SnapView, MirrorView, PowerPath, SRDF- Network Appliance: SnapMirror and Restore, Snap Vault- HDS: Business Copy, Cruise Control, HODM, HXRC, Shadow Image, True Copy- HP: Open View, Continuous Access XP, Business Copy- IBM: Flash Copy, PPRC, PPRC-XD, XRC 2 years experience in Veritas software: Volume Manager, Net Backup, Backup Exec, Cluster Server, File System, DMP, Veritas Volume Replicator, Foundation Suite 2 years experience with Clustering software concepts: Veritas, Microsoft 2 years experience with Backup and Recovery hardware and software: Legato, StorageTek, Veritas, Omniback, NDMP, Virtual tape platforms Presales certifications for leading storage vendor(s) Expert Ability to use Microsoft Word, Excel, Visio and Powerpoint Lead a team of individuals with assistance from a project manager. 50% travel requiredIncentive Bonus Structure based on meeting sales and delivery goals To Apply to this job go to http://www.GadBall.com or click here