Director, Security Engineering (West/Central)

Company Summary 

Vectra AI delivers a new class of advanced threat defence that delivers real-time detection and analysis of active intrusions. Vectra technology picks up where perimeter security leaves off by providing deep, continuous analysis of both internal and Internet-facing network traffic to automatically detect all phases of a breach as attackers attempt to spy, spread, and steal within your network. 

Vectra AI directly analyses network meta-data in real time using a patented combination of data science, machine learning, and behavioural analysis to detect attacker behaviours and user anomalies in the network. All detections are correlated and prioritized to show an attack in context. Meta-data extracted by the network of sensors and Cloud logs are sent to data-lakes in order to perform Detection, Incident Response and forensic reconstruction. 

Position Overview 

In your role as a Systems Engineer Director, you are the technical selling leader for the Security Engineering team. You will work closely with the large accounts, partners and commercial sales leaders along with your team, build relationships with your customers with the goal of helping them detect and prevent advanced cyberattacks and breaches. 

We are looking for a leader to develop our pre-sales teams, provide pre-sales support as a product expert and connect with C-level execs of our existing customers and prospects. Your guidance, expertise, and mentorship of your team of SEs will keep customers ahead of the latest cyberthreats and staying on the leading edge of detections capabilities. 

Additionally, you will provide feedback to the product management team on new feature requests and product improvements based on what you learn from your customer base. 

Responsibilities 

• Lead technical resource through the sales process handing over to the professional services team or partners upon completion. 
• Pre-sales support and technical account management for Vectra's Regional Sales Director. 
• Providing RFP, RFI & Proof of Concept strategic guidance. 
• Work internally with teams relaying feedback on how best to improve the product. 
• Communicate cross functionally constantly to ensure all key stakeholders are in the loop about product functionality and product desires experienced in the field. 
• Partner with the Product Management and R&D departments to develop features critical to Vectra's success. 
• Maintain knowledge at a high technical level of the current security landscape. 
• Recruit and hire new systems engineers into the territory, hiring the best talent in the industry. 
• Support field systems engineer team in complex evaluations, problem-solving and challenging customer environments. 
• Act as an escalation point for pre-sales and post-sales technical issues that arise making sure that customer satisfaction is at its highest. 
• Build and maintain relationships with key customers to solidify reference accounts and to assist the account teams with defining plans to drive more business 
• Present to customers as our expert in your area at all levels in the customer hierarchy from technician to CISO/CIO.
• Lead conversations about industry trends and emerging changes to the security landscape that every customer needs to plan for. 
• Travel as needed within region. 

Your Experience 

• Comfortable and thrive on pitching to enterprise C-level executives. 
• 5+ years' Pre-Sales management experience. 
• Large account management and escalation is required. 
• Demonstrable experience of empowering the sales team. 
• Strong understanding of Enterprise Security and SaaS Security technology. 
• Industry knowledge of security product market trends and directional awareness of our roadmap and technology development efforts, knowledge of competitor offerings and products. 
• Strong communication (written and verbal) and presentation skills. 
• Startup DNA is a must: willing and able to do "whatever it takes" with motivation to find solutions rather than admire the challenge.
• Customer-first behaviour is a must. 
• 3+ years experience in technical or pre-sales support as a Security Engineer (or Sales Engineer). 

Technical qualifications 

• Strong understanding of an attacker progression (Red Team or Pentest) or strong understanding of Incident Response (Blue Team) methodologies.
• Strong understanding of a security-focused product line with the ability to translate into security best practices.

As a plus we are very impressed with:

• An understanding of Security Processes and methodologies (CISSP/...). 
• Good understanding of Cloud Security. 
• Good knowledge in networking and ability to understand L3 to L7 OSI layers.