Sales Engineer Manager - China

VAST Data is reshaping the future of AI and data infrastructure. As we expand into one of the world most dynamic technology markets, we are seeking a highly driven Systems Engineering manager. In this pivotal role, you will act as the technical right-hand to the General Manager of Greater China. Because we are in a rapid scale-up phase, this is strictly a player-coach role. Before you build out a large regional team, you will be our founding technical boots on the ground. You must be just as comfortable racking and stacking hardware, running command-line diagnostics during a complex PoC, and architecting AI data pipelines as you are presenting to a Fortune 500 CIO. You will personally lead the technical sales cycle for our most strategic, high-value accounts, while gradually recruiting and leading a world-class Systems Engineering (SE) team. If you are a hardcore technologist who loves the thrill of the deal and wants to build a multi-billion- dollar business from the ground up, this is your opportunity.

Responsibilities

Act as the lead Systems Engineer on VAST’s largest, most strategic Tier-1 and hyperscale accounts in China and personally own the technical win; Design complex, high-performance data infrastructure solutions tailored to customer requirements in AI/ML, High-Performance Computing (HPC), and enterprise workloads; Personally install, configure, tune, and benchmark VAST systems during highly competitive Proof of Concepts (PoCs); Serve as the deepest technical expert in the room, capable of whiteboarding low-level architecture, debugging performance bottlenecks, and proving VAST’s superiority in real-time; Work lockstep with the GM of Greater China to define the technical go-to-market strategy, prioritize target accounts, and navigate regional data compliance (Cybersecurity Law, PIPL); Recruit, mentor, and lead a high-performing team of Systems Engineers and teach them VAST technology by bringing them into active deals; Personally lead the technical onboarding and enablement for VAST’s foundational channel partners, VARs, SIs, and domestic cloud alliances (Alibaba, Tencent, Huawei); Serve as the technical translator between the Chinese market and VAST’s global Product/Engineering teams, advocating for regional feature requirements and competitive intelligence

Requirements

10+ years of progressive experience in technical presales or systems engineering, with a proven track record as an elite, high-performing Individual Contributor (IC) on massive enterprise accounts; 3+ years of experience in a leadership or player-coach capacity; Demonstrable history of personally driving and winning complex technical sales cycles and PoCs with deal values in the $500K–$5M+ range; Must still be highly technical today; Expert-level understanding of enterprise storage (NAS, object, all-flash), file systems, and software-defined architectures; Strong grasp of AI/ML data pipelines, GPU-accelerated computing (NVIDIA ecosystem), and the infrastructure demands of LLM training and RAG; Hands-on proficiency with Linux OS tuning, high-performance networking (InfiniBand, RoCE, TCP/IP), and containerization (Kubernetes); Intimate, battle-tested knowledge of how to beat Huawei OceanStor, Inspur, DDN, WEKA, and Dell PowerScale in competitive bake-offs; Fluent/Native Mandarin and strong professional English are strictly required; Extreme resilience, resourcefulness, and a bias for action; Extensive travel required within Greater China (approx. 40-50%), often visiting data centers and customer sites

Nice to have

Ideally as a founding technical hire for a Western tech company entering the Chinese market

Benefits

Market-Leading Compensation: Highly competitive base salary, uncapped variable commission, and equity participation in a pre-IPO company fundamentally changing AI infrastructure; The Best of Both Worlds: The autonomy to build your own technical organization, combined with the thrill of staying hands-on with bleeding-edge technology; World-Class Support: Partner closely with an elite global engineering team and a visionary regional General Manager