Presales Systems Engineer - KRITIS Utilities

Systems Engineer – KRITIS Utilities

Location: Northern Germany – home office OR Fortinet Hamburg office.

Objective

In this key role a Systems Engineer will work closely with a sales representative in a defined district. The Systems Engineer's main mission will be to support the sales organization in all technical matters regarding pre‑sales, sales activities, and selected post‑sales activities.

Responsibilities

• Understanding of the Fortinet portfolio with ability to demonstrate and articulate technical and business value.
• Strong foundational knowledge in security and networking technology and specifically in our “core technology”, FortiOS‑based products.
• Subject Matter Expert and first contact in an assigned technical domain within or across assigned sales district. Manage domain use cases, competitive intelligence, and differentiation. Excellent product integration & customization skills including relevant 3rd‑party integrations.
• Create sales opportunities by identifying solutions to customer problems and assist in qualifying sales leads from a technical perspective. Discover opportunities to upsell and cross‑sell Fortinet solutions. Initiate and influence project decisions.
• Manage and lead all aspects of the technical sales engagement from general queries to demos, RfX, and PoC’s around features, specifications, and functionality to integration. Provide architecture and implementation design consultation and best practice guidance for strategic opportunities.
• Act as trusted advisor for assigned accounts and maintain the technical relationship with the customer. Discover opportunities to upsell and cross‑sell Fortinet solutions. Work closely with the regional escalation manager, technical support team and engineering to ensure customer’s technical issues are answered and resolved.
• Collaborate with peers, Consulting System Engineers (CSE’s), Solution Architects, Business Consultants, Professional Services and/or Partners on complex opportunities. Capture and manage customer requirements through the Consulting System Engineering Team to Product Management.
• Support Presales, Sales & Channel enablement activities and events.

Required Skills

• Minimum of 5 years’ experience in pre‑sales support with proven success.
• Expert level knowledge in networking (LAN, WIFI, WAN, SDN, routing, switching) and network security (Next‑Gen Firewalls, Intrusion Detection, encryption protocols).
• Strong customer focus to address complex technical and business requirements with a self‑motivated, positive attitude. Goal‑driven, adapting to shifting priorities, demands and timelines.
• Knowledge of the following domains is a plus:
  • Datacentre architectures (e.g. ACI, NSX‑T)
  • Security Architectures (e.g. Zero Trust, SASE)
  • Modern Software Architectures (e.g. DevOps, IaC)
  • Cloud Architectures with at least one public cloud specialization
  • Security Operations (e.g. Orchestration, Automation, SIEM Tools)
  • IT Security standards (e.g. BSI 200‑x, ISO2700x, COBIT, NIST) and/or relevant regulations (EU‑DSGVO, BDSG, NIS‑2/KRITIS).
• Excellent German and English language skills.
• Ability to interface with senior levels of internal / external organizations is required.
• Expert level verbal & written communication, presentation, prioritization, and interpersonal skills.
• Deep level experience in installation and configuration of network devices, systems (UNIX/Linux, Windows‑based, virtualized and containers), public‑clouds, and scripting (ideally Ansible, Terraform, Python with good knowledge of APIs).
• Willingness to travel 20‑50% of time.

Fortinet is an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity in our company, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics in the location in which the candidate is applying.