Global Specialist Solution Architect - Lightwell

Overview

Red Hat's Technology Sales group seeks a Lightwell Specialist Solution Architect (SSA) to play a pivotal role in delivering advanced technical sales support that enables successful Go-To-Market strategies for Red Hat Lightwell. The role centers on eliminating organizational, technical, and competitive obstacles to foster adoption, positioning Red Hat as the foundation for customers' application development.

Key Responsibilities

• Serve as the primary technical authority for trusted software supply chain initiatives within engagements, collaborating with Account Solution Architects and Executives to advance Red Hat Lightwell adoption across customer accounts.
• Navigate technical discussions tailored to different stakeholders—developers, platform engineers, development leadership, security, and compliance teams—modulating communication styles accordingly.
• Effectively communicate and defend Red Hat's competitive advantages in the marketplace.
• Integrate software supply chain products within Red Hat's broader ecosystem, covering hardened container images, artifact signing, attestation, Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) generation, pipeline policy enforcement, and runtime security.
• Demonstrate solution capabilities by configuring and troubleshooting builds within customer environments alongside their engineering teams.
• Support pre- and post-sales initiatives including technical deep dives, proof of concepts, internal sprints, hackathons, and partner-derived vertical solutions to boost product adoption.
• Identify and build relationships with multiple customer stakeholders, advocating on behalf of Red Hat within their organizations.
• Advise on integrating Lightwell with existing artifact management, mirroring, and pipeline systems, including support for disconnected and air-gapped infrastructures.
• Collaborate closely with Lightwell's business unit and engineering teams to relay market feedback and facilitate continuous product improvements.
• Engage in community outreach through activities such as conference speaking and blogging.
• Provide education and mentorship aimed at elevating technical sales teams' expertise in software supply chain security.

Required Qualifications and Experience

• At least six years of combined experience in software engineering, build or release engineering, platform engineering, DevSecOps, or technical sales roles involving software with significant dependency and upgrade responsibilities.
• Proven ability to work hands-on within customer or production build environments.
• Proficiency with two or more build tools such as Maven, pip, and npm, including understanding of dependency resolution, transitive dependencies, lockfiles, and version constraints.
• Practical knowledge of enterprise build configurations, including registry and repository settings and mirroring of package registries.
• Hands-on experience managing enterprise artifact repositories and internal mirrors.
• Solid comprehension of build reproducibility, deployment in disconnected or air-gapped settings, and handling multi-language codebases.
• Expertise in software supply chain security topics including SLSA build integrity levels (especially Level 3), SBOM formats (SPDX, CycloneDX), artifact signing and verification (including HSM-backed signing), attestation and enforcement mechanisms.
• Familiarity with vulnerability exploitability standards such as VEX and CSAF, and understanding threat models like provenance, typosquatting, and dependency confusion.
• Experience delivering technical presentations and leading sessions focused on business value.
• Strong credibility with engineering professionals and ability to engage leadership and executive audiences, including public speaking.
• Accurate and transparent communication about product capabilities and roadmaps, especially where coverage is developing.
• Flexibility to travel as required to support business and customer needs.

Preferred Qualifications

• Background as a sales engineer, technical sales professional, or a similar function within enterprise software, SaaS, or systems integrator environments.
• Professional software development experience in Java or Python ecosystems, managing dependencies and release cycles.
• Ownership experience of CI/CD platforms, artifact repositories, or internal developer infrastructures at scale.
• DevSecOps knowledge, including integration of security tools and policy within delivery pipelines, and awareness of organizational dynamics between security, platform, and application teams.
• Experience in application or product security domains, including vulnerability and dependency risk management, or secure development lifecycle processes.
• Active contributions to upstream open source projects, particularly in areas like packaging, release engineering, or maintenance.
• Basic understanding of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, OpenShift, and Ansible Automation Platform.
• Awareness of compliance frameworks applicable to key geographic regions and how automation can enforce regulatory controls.

About Red Hat and Our Culture

Red Hat is a global leader in enterprise open source software, delivering high-performance solutions in Linux, cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies through a community-focused model. Our employees operate worldwide with flexible work environments. We foster an inclusive culture based on transparency, collaboration, and respect, encouraging innovation from diverse perspectives. We actively support equal opportunities and provide accommodations for applicants with disabilities.

Equal Opportunity and Other Information

We proudly uphold equal employment opportunities and do not discriminate based on any legally protected category. Red Hat does not accept unsolicited resumes from recruitment agencies without prior contractual agreement. Assistance is available for candidates needing help with the application process via dedicated email support.