Chef Software is the industry leader in IT automation and DevOps solutions. We are a dynamic and rapidly growing software company with a strong sense of dedication to our customers and the Chef community. We work hard but try not to take ourselves too seriously. This is a very collaborative and inclusive work environment where individuals strong on aptitude and attitude will have an opportunity to grow their professional careers through working with some of the most advanced technology and talented developers in the business. We provide competitive compensation, generous benefits, and a professional yet relaxed atmosphere.

At Chef, we develop the world's best products for managing applications and infrastructure at scale, and we deploy them against real problems in all kinds of industries. We’re writing the rules of the cloud -- rules the world’s top engineers live, breathe and contribute to. Our platform is used to enable hundreds of millions of people around the world to chat, fly, present, bank, game, shop, and learn. Chances are the web applications you use every day have infrastructure built, deployed, secured and ran with our code.

The Chef Customer Success Team operates globally, and includes Customer Success Management, Technical Success, Professional Services, and Support. These teams work together closely to execute on programs and playbooks that enable our customers to become successful and grow.

Do you want to work for a company that’s driving new technology practices around automation, collaboration and optimization? Chef has created the leading products that help transform enterprises large and small and we need you to help with that journey.

We employ some of the most well-known and respected software developers, systems architects, and operations engineers in the world, who have built, designed and operated applications you use every day. Our open source project, Chef, includes corporate contributions from Facebook, HP, Dell, VMware, Nordstrom, Rackspace and hundreds of other leading edge technology companies.

The Customer Architect, At-Risk Segment is a technical champion and mentor-coach who relentlessly drives adoption of Chef products and practices within Chef’s customers. With our customers, at events, and in our online communities, the CA acts as the face of Chef. They are highly experienced in applying automation to improve business performance. They coach our customers’ technical decision makers and senior management to identify and prioritize business problems, define measures around these, and plan technical strategies to address them.

This position requires up to 50% travel to work with customers onsite. This role will work with accounts across North America.

What You’ll Do:

You will be working with customers who have technical or cultural blockers that make it difficult to adopt our software stack. You will be responsible for identifying ways to engage and build a plan for success for these customers. You enjoy the challenge of solving any problem in front of you, and enjoy figuring out how to get to ‘yes’. This will require you to form close working relationship with your Customer Success Manager, Sales, Professional Services, and Support teams.

Responsibilities:

• Work with customers who have technical, cultural, or financial blockers to improve quality and reduce costs utilizing Chef products and services.
• Come up with creative ways to create and maintain constructive relationships with challenging customers.
• Understand the ideals, but have a skill in maximizing value while minimizing disruption and cost.
• Lead customers in the application of Chef’s product and service offerings towards meaningful goals, including help in designing architecture to meet business goals, as well as aiding in overcoming blockers.
• Work with the account team (Customer Success Manager, Regional Sales Director, and Solutions Architect) to define and execute account strategy.
• Actively drive customer adoption and look for opportunities to increase customer loyalty and revenue growth.
• Train groups and individuals on how to use Chef products for IT automation, Application Automation, Continuous Compliance, Configuration Management, and Continuous Delivery.
• Document services provided to customers, including new code, techniques and processes, in such a way as to make such services more efficient in the future and to add to the Chef Community.
• Work with the Engineering team to contribute code changes and documentation for Chef products.
• Use social networks, online and otherwise, in a creative, meaningful way to reach a large audience of users and build the Chef community.
• Recommend product improvements based on customers’ experiences.
• Be your customers’ champion inside of Chef.

Position Requirements:

• Relentless drive and passion for customers.
• Ability to triage and prioritize multiple work streams to maximize potential.
• Enjoyment of challenge and High Risk/High Reward scenarios.
• 5 years of demonstrated experience in systems engineering/administration or software development.
• Expert-level working knowledge of Chef OSS Software, including Chef, InSpec, and/or Habitat.
• Experience in using Continuous Delivery practices to release to production.
• Empathy and understanding of the work engineers, architects, managers, and others do in building, releasing, and maintaining software.
• Demonstrably superb verbal communications skills, including a dynamic and engaging presentation style that inspires confidence.
• Experience in dynamic / scripting programming languages and software development tools.
• Experience in coaching others in complex tasks and skills.
• Experience building and running applications in production.
• Familiarity with cloud native design patterns, microservices, and modern web scale architectures.
• Skill navigating organizations and creating alliances to resolve problems.
• Awesomeness trumps all other requirements.

At Chef, we celebrate and support our differences. We know employing a team rich in diverse thoughts, experiences, and opinions allows our employees, our products and our community to flourish. Chef is honored to be an equal opportunity workplace. We are dedicated to equal employment opportunities regardless of race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation or Veteran status.