Director, Systems Engineering

Director, Systems Engineering

In our 'always on' world, we believe it's essential to have a genuine connection with the work you do. At Ruckus, our mission is to deliver purpose-driven networks across vertical markets, that drive human experiences where we learn, live, work, and play. With core values focused on innovation and customer success, RUCKUS has an unbeaten track record of redefining what's possible in connectivity and network performance with our portfolio of AI-powered access points, multigigabit switching, and Cloud and Edge services. This leadership position is remote, requires roughly 50% or more travel and located in the Southwest Mountain states of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Louisiana.

How You'll Help Us To Connect The World:

As the Director of Systems Engineering for Southwest Mountain you will lead a geographically distributed team of Systems Engineers supporting customers and channel partners across the region. This is a hands-on leadership role responsible for driving technical sales success through partner enablement, customer engagement, and team development in a diverse and high-growth market. You will work closely with regional sales leadership, distributors, and partners to expand RUCKUS adoption and ensure strong technical alignment across countries. You will attract, recruit, and develop talented SEs and support the team's efforts to successfully position, influence and grow the RUCKUS product portfolio to net new and existing installed base customers and channel partners.

Responsibilities:

• Lead, coach, and develop a distributed team of Systems Engineers across the Southwest Mountain region
• Partner with regional sales leadership to achieve revenue targets, pipeline growth, and market expansion
• Drive technical engagement with channel partners, distributors, and key end customers
• Support partner recruitment, onboarding, and ongoing technical enablement across multiple markets
• Guide pre-sales activities including solution design, demos, POCs, and RFx responses
• Review and strengthen technical account plans and regional go-to-market strategies
• Act as a technical escalation point for complex, multi-country deployments and customer situations
• Build executive-level relationships with partners, distributors, and customers as a trusted advisor
• Collaborate with product management and internal teams to provide regional market feedback and influence roadmap
• Promote best practices in solution design, deployment, and customer success across diverse environments

Core Qualifications:

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, IT, or related field (or equivalent experience)
• 8+ years of pre-sales or systems engineering experience in at least one area of networking (Wi-Fi, switching, routing)
• 3+ years of experience leading or managing technical teams
• Strong experience working with channel partners and distributors in emerging or multi-country markets
• Hands-on experience with enterprise networking solutions, including wireless and switching
• Proven ability to operate across complex and matrixed organizations
• Strong leadership qualities through inspiration, positive reinforcement and recognition, personnel growth, support and manage complex situations, relationships, behaviors and remove roadblock items for your SE team
• Highly effective technical, business and industry related presentation skills

Requirements:

A proficient understanding of pre-sales engineering including new customer acquisition strategies, technical influencing, objecting handling, how to develop technical and business skillsets of your team, program and case management, hardware and software networking solutions in IT infrastructures, channel partner engagements for growth, and critical account management

Strong understanding and experience with mid to large enterprise business models and technical requirements for verticals that include MDU, K-12, SLED, higher education, hospitality, manufacturing, warehouse, logistics, large public venues and others

Advanced understanding of customer business drivers and how to map these to customer requirements and network environments, migrations, and network refresh decision making strategies including identification of improvement areas in network design

Multi-tasker with strong ability to manage under pressure to address deadlines, program manage development of deliverables, and logistical champion when supporting multiple projects and events

Working knowledge or understanding of networking technical skills; specifically, 802.11 Wi-Fi technology evolution releases (Wi-Fi 5, 6, 7), best practices design and assessment, wireless troubleshooting, RF tools used for pre and post site surveys, wireless network optimization, IP routing and switching WAN/LAN design, setup and configuration, Layer 4-7 application services, security authentication methods and products, SASE, SD-WAN, RADIUS, AD, Virtualization environments/deployments, VM installations, (any of VM Ware, KVM, Hyper-V, GCE, Azure, AWS), secure device/user onboarding solutions, etc.

General knowledge of the following areas of specialization: Cloud services (SaaS); VLAN; network segmentation, personal identity networking, security (SASE); SD-WAN; wireless controller architectures; indoor and outdoor wireless deployments; general routing and switching

Our salary ranges consider a wide variety of factors, including but not limited to benchmarking by independent third-party consultants, skill sets, years of experience, training, education, geography, and other business needs. Depending on experience, the range can be higher for candidates with exceptional experience and a demonstrated history of successful performance. Expected Total Target Compensation for this role is $177,000- $266,000. The candidate will be rewarded with a comprehensive benefits package, including medical, dental, and vision plans, life and accidental death insurance, a 401(k) plan, and participation in the Company's Incentive Plan. Candidates starting with the Company will be eligible for eleven paid holidays in a full calendar year, two weeks of paid vacation (prorated based on start date), as well as other leave options.

Vistance Networks shapes the future of communications technology, pushing past what is possible. We deliver solutions that bring reliability and performance to a world always in motion. Our global team of innovators and employees are trusted advisors who listen to customers first, then deliver value. RUCKUS Networks delivers purpose-driven enterprise networks that enable superior business outcomes in demanding environments. Our solutions combine AI-powered automation, proactive network assurance, and context-aware security, providing exceptional performance with simplified management.