Forward Deployed Engineering, Portworx

Everpure (NYSE: P) has evolved from storage pioneer to data platform closing fiscal 2026 with $3.7 billion in revenue its first billion-dollar quarter and accelerating growth into FY27. Our strategic agenda spans the companies defining the next era of technology - hyperscalers AI labs the AI hardware supply chain data platform providers and the broader AI ecosystem.

This type of workwork that changes the worldis what the tech industry was founded on. So if youre ready to seize the endless opportunities and leave your mark come join us.

THE ROLE

Portworx is building a Forward Deployed Engineering team to embed directly with our most strategic customers during their highest-stakes Kubernetes storage deployments. Youll be the technical bridge between complex customer infrastructure and Portworx itself: shaping production architectures advising through critical rollouts and turning field experience into structured product feedback that shapes our roadmap.

This is a consultative role. The customers teams operate their own environment; your job is to make sure the decisions they make are the right ones. That means the value you bring is judgment and depth rather than execution: knowing which architecture holds under load and failure which assumptions in a proposed design are wrong and what a given storage fabric hypervisor estate or network topology will and wont support.

Most of this work sits in the customers own data center. Our largest and most complex deployments run on customer-owned compute Fibre Channel and IP storage fabrics established virtualization estates and enterprise network designs that predate Kubernetes by a decade. You need to be genuinely conversant below the Kubernetes layer at the server the HBA the switch and the array because that is where these deployments succeed or fail and where the customers infrastructure leaders will test whether youre worth listening to.

This is not a support role and not a pure pre-sales role. Youll own engagements end-to-end: from solution validation before you ever get on a plane through architecture design production readiness and a clean handoff. Youll leave behind documentation and decision guidance that make the next customers journey faster.

Just as important as the technical substance: this is a relationship-building role. Day to day youll work alongside the customers platform and infrastructure teams mostly their senior engineers leads and architects. Youll also engage directly with the Directors and VPs of Infrastructure and Platform Engineering who set platform direction and the goal is to become a trusted advisor on that broader strategy not just their Portworx footprint. Done well this role earns Portworx (and Pure) real standing and visibility across the customers platform organization.

WHAT YOULL DO

• Design and review production Portworx architectures for complex high-stakes environments: bare metal and virtualized on-prem estates multi-cluster and DR topologies KubeVirt VM migration regulated and air-gapped deployments and hybrid footprints where customers also run cloud or CaaS
• Pressure-test the customers intended design against the compute storage fabric hypervisor and network they actually have and tell them plainly where it wont hold
• Advise on the decisions that determine whether a deployment survives contact with production: storage class design KVDB topology snapshot and backup policy replication mode and placement capacity and sizing
• Guide the customers infrastructure and platform teams through the layers underneath Portworx: LUN presentation and masking multipath behavior LVM layout HBA and NIC choices MTU and bonding VLAN and routing boundaries hypervisor datastore and passthrough decisions. Their engineers execute; you make sure the design is sound and the tradeoffs are understood
• Where it strengthens the recommendation validate an architecture pattern in a lab before traveling on-site so advice rests on something tested rather than assumed
• Define the failure-mode and performance validation plan before go-live (node rack and AZ loss path and fabric failure network partition upgrade paths) then interpret the results with the customer
• Act as the senior technical voice during critical rollouts and live escalations: direct the diagnosis frame the decision and pull in Support and Engineering when the problem belongs to them
• Author reference architectures runbooks and decision frameworks that become reusable IP across engagements
• Upskill customer platform teams so they can operate independently post-handoff
• Build and sustain relationships across the customers platform organization: daily with the senior engineers leads and architects you work beside and directly with the Directors and VPs of Infrastructure and Platform Engineering by understanding and helping shape where their platform is headed rather than only where Portworx sits in it
• Conduct periodic visits to established already-live accounts to maintain the relationship stay current on their evolving platform needs and surface expansion opportunities. Many customers start small and grow and this is how that growth gets found and won
• Develop enough fluency in the customers development environment and workflows to speak credibly to their platform needs as a whole
• Log and structure field feedback (bugs feature gaps roadmap signal) for a recurring feedback loop with Product and Engineering
• Partner closely with Sales Engineering Customer Success and Support to triage which engagements warrant FDE involvement
• We are primarily an in-office environment and therefore you will be expected to work from the Santa Clara Chicago or New York office in compliance with Everpures policies unless you are on PTO or work travel or other approved leave

WHAT YOU BRING

The depth below is what the role runs on. We expect you to have earned it by operating this infrastructure yourself earlier in your career because customers can tell the difference between someone who has run it and someone who has read about it.

• 5 years in infrastructure or platform engineering SRE architecture or field and solutions engineering roles; prior forward deployed field engineering or professional services experience a plus
• Must have Unix & Linux administrator experience
• Deep Kubernetes expertise (CKA/CKS or equivalent) grounded in having run clusters in production rather than in a lab
• Strong command of enterprise storage: Fibre Channel SAN (zoning WWPNs fabric login and path behavior) iSCSI NVMe/TCP NAS protocols dm-multipath LVM and array-side provisioning masking and mapping
• Real understanding of compute and server hardware: bare metal provisioning and lifecycle BIOS firmware and driver management HBA and NIC selection NUMA and CPU/memory topology local NVMe layout and endurance
• Production-grade virtualization knowledge ideally VMware vSphere and ESXi (datastores VMFS vVols HA and DRS behavior resource contention) plus an understanding of KubeVirt as a migration target
• Practical data center networking: VLANs and trunking MTU and jumbo frames bonding and LACP L2 versus L3 boundaries routing load balancer integration and how partitions congestion and asymmetric paths present in a distributed storage system
• Solid Linux systems background extending to the block and device layers: udev kernel and sysctl tuning systemd I/O scheduling and performance triage with tools like iostat blktrace and perf
• Familiarity with cloud and managed Kubernetes platforms (EKS AKS GKE OpenShift) is useful since many customers run a hybrid footprint but on-prem depth is what this role is built around
• Working understanding of customer development environments (CI/CD application deployment patterns dev and test workflows) sufficient to reason about platform needs beyond just the storage layer
• Prior experience with Portworx other CSI-based storage platforms or enterprise storage vendors (Pure Storage NetApp Dell etc.) is highly valued
• Genuine relationship-building instincts. Trust is earned with the engineers and leads you work beside and has to extend to the senior leaders above them; this is a relationship you sustain not a project you close out. Comfort running both a technical whiteboard session and a live war-room call and staying in touch between fires
• The judgment to know when to advise and when to step back. Youll spend more time shaping decisions and teaching than typing at a customers keyboard
• Strong technical writing skills. The artifacts you leave behind are as important as the advice you gave in the room.

#LI-ONSITE

WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT FROM US:

• Innovation: We celebrate those who think critically like a challenge and aspire to be trailblazers.
• Growth: We give you the space and support to grow along with us and to contribute to something meaningful. We have been named Fortunes Best Workplaces in Technology Fortunes Best Workplaces in the Bay Area and certified as a Great Place to Work!
• Team: We build each other up and set aside ego for the greater good.

And because we understand the value of bringing your full and best self to work we offer a variety of perks to manage a healthy balance including flexible time off wellness resources and company-sponsored team events. Check out for more information.

ACCOMMODATIONS AND ACCESSIBILITY:

Candidates with disabilities may request accommodations for all aspects of our hiring process. For more on this contact us at if youre invited to an interview.

OUR COMMITMENT TO A STRONG AND INCLUSIVE TEAM:

Were forging a future where everyone finds their rightful place and where every voice matters. Where uniqueness isnt just accepted but embraced. Thats why we are committed to fostering the growth and development of every person cultivating a sense of community through our Employee Resource Groups and advocating for inclusive leadership.

Everpure is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race religion color national origin sex (including pregnancy childbirth or related medical conditions) sexual orientation gender gender identity gender expression transgender status sexual stereotypes age status as a protected veteran status as an individual with a disability or any other characteristic legally protected by the laws of the jurisdiction in which you are being considered for hire.

Join us and bring your best.

Bring your bold.

Pure and simple.