Technical Architect – Cisco Security R&Dat CDW Careers

CDW’s vision is to be the best national provider of Advanced Technology Solutions. We’ll achieve this reputation by continuing to delight our customers and being the employer of choice for Advanced Technology Solutions. Technical Architects at CDW are smart, hard-working technology consultants who enjoy teaming with other best and brightest technology consultants on highly visible, technically challenging projects and services. We are looking for high-caliber, well-rounded professionals who are passionate about emerging technology, projects, and technology consulting. 

Technical Architects are technology thought leaders at CDW. Technical Architects apply the necessary technical breadth and depth to develop successful CDW services and raise the overall technical capabilities of CDW’s consultants.

• Set standards for and provide leadership and guidance around the creation of reference architectures and roadmaps which clearly tie back to customer business and technology outcomes, service delivery targets and requirements
• Oversee the creation of documentation artifact standards for reference architectures, designs, deployment planning, hardware and software standards and standard building blocks. Design a comprehensive technology lifecycle management process, including the definition of required artifacts, approval processes, risk profiles and technology refresh cycles.
• Customers and Sales: Solicit input/feedback from both internal and external customers to shape the services portfolio
• Vendors: Working with other CDW business areas (PPM, Strategic Solutions), develop and grow vendor relationships pertinent to Services success

They leverage their business acumen skills around portfolio management to create differentiated services for CDW supporting new technologies.  They analyze and develop our services capabilities, financial performance, competitiveness, and industry trends within the marketplace

This is an exciting opportunity for significant growth of CDW’s service capabilities.    

Key Areas of Responsibility
RESPONSIBILITY FOR CREATING RELEVENT VALUABLE SERVICES - Here are the roles that Technical Architects play in the defining and maintaining services that we go to market with:  

• Services Idea and Research – collaborate with Product/ Managers stakeholder and ambassador teams to identify and validate new Advanced Technology service solution opportunities and conduct market research. Provide leadership in maintaining 12-month rolling roadmap for services. 
• Service Design - build Minimal Viable Product (MVP) definitions, standard operating procedures for solution implementation and support, help to validate economic viability of solutions and to help to build customer value propositions.  Manage Controlled Release process for new services and provide early life support where appropriate.  
• Service Launch– provide deep and broad technical support to Solutions Specialists, review system designs and participate in bid assurance, as required by customers.  Work closely with Engineering teams to scale operations to support new and existing services.  
• Empower – aid Product Managers with ongoing technical pricing enablement, and operational support.
• Iterate – participate in post-project debrief sessions, archive intellectual property and transfer knowledge to Engineers and Managed Services and Practice teams.  Provide assistance with pricing updates, product enhancements, automation, and if needed, retirement.  

RESPONSIBILITY FOR BUILDING THOUGHT LEADERSHIP - Technical Architects are charged with accelerating the technical development of Solution Specialists and Engineers. Here are the practices that Technical Architects apply to grow the best and brightest technical professionals.

• Technology and Innovation – Technical Architects are thought leaders in their respective technology spaces having demonstrated the ability to lead teams with new solutions and innovating others. 
• Coaching and Development – collaborate with Product Managers, Professional Services Managers, Managing Consultants, and Solution Specialists to build staff and training plans for new effective implementation of Advanced Technology Solutions, provide troubleshooting support for CDW Engineers and Solution Specialists and on-the-job mentoring for Emerging Technology Engineers (ETE).
• Knowledge Sharing and Training – work with Product Managers, Professional Services Managers, Managing Consultants and Training Managers to develop training curriculum for new Advanced Technology solutions. Deliver or facilitate technical training to Engineers and Solution Specialists, contribute, lead or own internal online discussion groups and virtual team meetings.
• Technology Labs – lead the build-out of engineering labs. This includes driving procurement strategies, vendor early-field trials (EFT’s), and lab documentation and administration.
• Intellectual Property Development – build standard operating procedures for solution implementation and support, author technical white papers, construct tools and processes to reduce the cost of delivering projects, create a standard Engineer toolkit, build virtual labs for internal, hands-on training, implement and deliver customer training and present at vendor partner conferences. 

GROW SERVICES GROSS PROFIT- Technical Architects are ultimately accountable for:

• Working with Product Managers to manage profitable services.
• Selling work on projects, through other Engineers and Solutions Specialists.
• Developing and implementing intellectual property, for the benefit of other Engineers.
• Significant involvement in and leadership of managed/hosted/shared network designs and plans.
• Product Management and Development Labs – Architecture, budgeting, procurement and implementation with the goal of maintaining product currency within the PM and Development labs.

DELIVER EMERGING TECHNOLOGY AND STRATEGIC PROJECTS- Perform and/or lead engagements for customers on emerging technology areas up to 25% of the time.

Education and/or Experience Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Business, Computer Science, a related technical degree or equivalent
• Three to Seven years of large - scale, enterprise - class planning, design, implementation and support experience
• At least three years of consulting experience 

Other Required Qualifications

• In depth knowledge of the Cisco Security technologies as well as their integration points to other related technologies
• Technical certifications in Cisco-related technology
• Proven ability to build, mentor and lead effective engineering teams
• Demonstrated a track record of continuous learning, adaptation to change, and a clear ability to deal with ambiguity
• Must possess excellent communications skills both orally and written with the ability to effectively interact with Stakeholders and various cross functional teams as well as customers
• Proven ability to proactively collaborate and build relationships, take initiative, and creatively problem solve
• History of successfully coordinating complex projects with multiple facets and stakeholders
• Applicant should demonstrate solid attention to detail and a penchant for accuracy
• Excellent analytical skills.  Demonstrated ability to understand data finding to draw conclusions and develop actionable recommendations
• Demonstrated accountability for delivery against business goals and objectives    
• Ability and willingness to travel up to 25% or as needed to other CDW locations, meetings and client sites

Preferred Qualifications

• Project oversight responsibilities, management and technical leadership and engineer mentoring experience