Director Customer Engineering

Elastic is a free and open search company that powers enterprise search, observability, and security solutions built on one technology stack that can be deployed anywhere. From finding documents to monitoring infrastructure to hunting for threats, Elastic makes data usable in real-time and at scale. Thousands of organizations worldwide, including Barclays, Cisco, eBay, Fairfax, ING, Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, The Mayo Clinic, NASA, The New York Times, Wikipedia, and Verizon, use Elastic to power mission-critical systems. Founded in 2012, Elastic is a distributed company with Elasticians around the globe. Learn more at elastic.co.

We are on the hunt for a Director of Customer Engineering to steer the direction for our teams in the West/Central  region. At Elastic, our solutions are tailored to provide Observability, Cybersecurity, and Search, and we need a leader who is technically adept and can drive our teams to ensure our customers derive the most value from our offerings.

In this leadership position, the ideal candidate is a unique blend of a people-focused, business-driven, and technically-savvy leader. You will directly oversee leaders who manage teams of Customer Architects and Customer Success Executives. Having an intimate understanding of our technical solutions is crucial to empathize with your team's challenges and derive strategic solutions.

The Director of Customer Engineering plays a pivotal role in representing Elastic at the forefront. Given the intrinsic technical nature of our offerings, it's crucial for the Director to be proficient in the intricacies of our solutions, ensuring they can effectively communicate their value and drive consumption.

This role requires frequent face-to-face engagements, making it essential for the candidate to excel at in-person presentations, discussions, and building strong relationships rooted in technical trust. With the span of West and Central regions and the need to touch base with a wide array of customers, travel  becomes inherent to this role. Candidates should be primed for 25% travel, geared towards promoting and amplifying the consumption of our Elastic solutions across the Americas.

What you will be doing: 

• Leadership: Lead and mentor leaders of Customer Architects and Customer Success Executives, encouraging a culture of collaboration, innovation, and customer-centricity.
• Technical Acumen: Serve as the technical pillar of leadership, ensuring that the region's strategies align with the technical nuances of our solutions. A background in sales engineering leadership is beneficial.
• Strategic Planning: Employ both urgent and strategic mindsets to address critical situations, instilling processes that address challenges at scale. Ensure that teams in the region are geared towards helping customers realize value and driving consumption.
• Market Knowledge: Leverage your experience with distributed datastores, and areas such as observability, cybersecurity, or search to bring depth to the team's understanding of the market. Experience in Vectors, Machine Learning, and GenAI will be an added advantage.
• Collaboration: Work in tandem with regional sales leaders, account teams, and other stakeholders to ensure seamless communication and alignment of objectives.

What you bring along:

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field highly preferred.
• Proven experience leading teams centered on consumption.
• Technical expertise in distributed datastores, and areas like observability, cybersecurity, or search. Familiarity with Elastic solutions will be a significant advantage.
• Familiarity or experience in the realms of Vectors, Machine Learning, and GenAI.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to articulate complex technical concepts to a varied audience.
• Ability to balance urgency with strategic planning, ensuring teams are always aligned with company and customer objectives.

At Elastic, we value leaders who can drive both people and strategies towards success. If you're ready to be the bridge between technical nuances and customer success in the Americas, we'd love to have a conversation.

Compensation for this role is in the form of base salary plus a variable component, that together comprise the On-Target Earnings (OTE).  On-Target Earnings (OTE) are based on a 70/30 pay mix (base salary / target variable).  

The typical starting OTE range for new hires in this role is listed below.  This range represents the lowest to highest OTE we reasonably and in good faith believe we would pay for this role