Senior Solutions Engineer, Pre-Sales (Mid West) Sales Engineering | United States (Remote) — Chicago, IL You'll be the technical lead in Alkira's largest enterprise deals — in the room with network architects and infrastructure directors, owning the technical side of the deal from first conversation through POC to close. This is a pre-sales engineering role. You'll partner directly with an Account Manager on strategy and carry real influence over what we build next — our Product team treats SE field feedback as a primary input to the roadmap. Location: Remote, US. Candidates should reside in the Chicago, IL region Travel: approximately 25%, including regional air travel as needed. Please discuss the specifics for this position with the recruiter. What you'll do * Present and demo the Alkira platform to technical decision makers, from engineer to CIO * Clearly articulate the Alkira value proposition and have a sound understanding of market, industry and competitive landscape * Partner with Alkira Account Managers to understand customer requirements and pain points. Assist with any technical asks from customers and help respond to RFP/RFIs * Scope, run and win Proof of Concepts end to end * Assist customers with design and deployment based on best practices * Work with Alkira Product Management team to provide feedback on upcoming features from the customer's lens * Track and drive key customer features/asks with Alkira Product Management to implementation What you need * 8+ years in a customer-facing pre-sales engineering role — Sales Engineer, Systems Engineer, Solutions Consultant or Solutions Architect — ideally at a networking or security vendor, cloud provider, channel partner, or consultancy * Strong networking fundamentals – Everything below builds on this, and it is not negotiable * Deep expertise in routing protocols and technologies, including BGP, OSPF, and static routing, with hands-on experience in route policy design, route redistribution, filtering, and traffic engineering * Understanding of network virtualization and software-defined networking, including VRFs, multi-tenant network architectures, SD-WAN, and the encapsulation protocols used to build overlays at scale (GRE, VXLAN, GENEVE and similar) * Hands-on experience with IPsec VPNs, encryption standards, NAT, and secure connectivity architectures * Good understanding of how enterprises extend cloud connectivity using a variety of Networking Technologies (i.e. Cloud On-Ramps, SD-WAN and IPsec) * Experience in large-scale enterprise network design and deployment experience across data center, WAN and hybrid/multi-cloud * A deep understanding of network services — DNS, DHCP, load balancing, traffic inspection and similar * The ability to troubleshoot live, in front of a customer, across routing, security and cloud domains * Excellent written and verbal communication, and comfort presenting and demoing to customers in person – In this role you are the technical credibility of the company Strongly preferred * Understanding of cloud networking constructs across AWS, Azure, and GCP (e.g., VPCs/VNets, Transit Gateway, Virtual WAN, Cloud Router, peering, and hybrid connectivity such as Direct Connect and ExpressRoute) * Network security expertise, including firewalls (e.g., Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet, Check Point), firewall policy design, service insertion/chaining, and Zero Trust principles * Relevant technical certifications (e.g., CCNP/CCIE, AWS Advanced Networking, Azure Network Engineer, PCNSE) * Familiarity with Terraform or infrastructure-as-code for network automation * BA/BS/MS in a technical field * Strong passion for sales and creating long-lasting professional relationships About Alkira Alkira, a Lumen Connect® solution, is building the future of enterprise networking: one programmable platform to connect, secure, and operate every cloud, site, partner, data center, and AI workload. Founded by Amir and Atif Khan, the creators of Viptela and pioneers of the SD-WAN market, Alkira was built to radically simplify how enterprises deploy and manage network infrastructure. Today, as part of Lumen, we are bringing that cloud-native operating model to a global network foundation trusted by the world's largest enterprises. Our platform helps customers move faster without managing hardware, stitching together providers, or operating fragmented cloud networks. Teams can build and scale connectivity on demand, apply consistent security and segmentation, and gain visibility across distributed environments from one place. At Alkira, you'll help shape the next chapter of networking: cloud-like consumption, private-network performance, and total control across the enterprise. We move fast, solve hard problems, and build technology that changes how global businesses connect. Join us and help build the future of networking. Compensation Disclosure The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience and work location. This is a commissioned sales role; for candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the expected base salary plus commission target is the annual range listed below. $200,000.00 - $300,000.00/yr The range reflects the cost of labor across multiple U.S. geographic markets, and a candidate hired outside the primary market for this role may be compensated at a different rate. The role is eligible for our full benefits package. Equal Employment Opportunity Alkira is an equal opportunity employer. We consider all qualified applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, age, national origin, ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable federal, state or local law. Alkira provides reasonable accommodations for qualified individuals with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs and practices, in accordance with applicable law.