Mike Schwarz

Sr. Sales Engineer

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mvschwarz

Twitter: twitter.com/esoteric__x

Github: github.com/esoteric-git

Summary

Experienced sales engineer / solutions architect with 20+ years in cloud infrastructure and datacenters, from traditional 3-tier, to hyperconverged, to microservices running enterprise workloads including databases, apps, AI, and EUC.

Extensive background in designing, building, and optimizing enterprise infrastructure across diverse environments and cultures, from startups to large enterprises and academia.

Proficient in AI infrastructure and GenAI solutions, with a focus on developing and deploying LLM-integrated products.

Highlights

  • Highly skilled communicator, adept at verbal, written, presentation, whiteboarding, and public speaking engagements across all organizational levels.
  • Expertise in developing and presenting technical demonstrations and collateral, competitive positioning, and training and enabling channel partners.
  • Exceptional ability to motivate teams and drive traction for critical business initiatives.
  • Top performer in the full lifecycle of pre-sales, including lead generation, opportunity discovery, assessments, solution architecture, presentations, demos, in-depth POC evaluations, and proposal preparation.
  • Successfully completed numerous large-scale and mid-sized projects, with a focus on delivering robust and scalable infrastructure solutions.
  • Comprehensive understanding of technology trends and business objectives.
  • Knack for designing and executing creative solutions to complex problems.
  • Persistent student with agile analytical and creative thinking abilities, continually seeking to demystify and simplify complex technologies.

Experience

Galaxy & Sons - AI Engineer

Mar 2023 – Current (1.5 years)

  • Scoping and building AI product prototypes and working POC's as microservices
  • Stack: Python, Langchain, ChromaDB, Streamlit, FastAPI, Docker, AWS Lambda
  • Implementing AI infra and optimizing performance on AWS Bedrock (Claude, LLama), OpenAI, Replicate, Runpod

Nutanix – Sr. Systems Engineer

Jan 2018 – Feb 2022 (4 years)

  • Technical presales for the SoCal/Hawaii region, covering Commercial, SLED, and Enterprise accounts. Consistent top performer and trusted advisor to customers.
  • Aligned customer business needs with Nutanix solutions, ensuring the success of our partnerships. Evolved customer base to integrate our networking, kubernetes, File/Object, and AWS solutions.
  • Collaborated with cross-functional teams to design and implement scalable, high-performance computing solutions for data-intensive applications.

HPE (via SimpliVity acquisition) - Sr. Solutions Architect

Mar 2015 – Jan 2018 (~3 years)

  • SimpliVity was a leading HCI solution during this time and was acquired by HPE in 2017.
  • Technical presales for the SoCal/Hawaii region for 2 years during the intense high-growth startup phase of SimpliVity. Then 1 year at HPE to help my customers successfully navigate transition.
  • Consistently averaged at least 150-200% of quota each quarter, closing 40+ net new logos ranging from small deals to a $16M win, the largest in SimpliVity history.

Silver Peak – Sr. Systems Engineer

Mar 2014 – Mar 2015 (1 year)

  • Technical presales for the Socal region, serving as an early technical evangelist and solutions architect for Silver Peak’s leading SD-WAN solution. Silver Peak was later acquired by HPE in 2020.

Early Career Timeline

1997 – 2014

  • 2011-2014: Zones - Sr. Solutions Architect - VAR Pre and post sales, go-to resource for advanced networking, datacenter, server-virt, security projects. Spearheaded and started Zone’s converged infrastructure practice getting all the certs and selling/installing the first vBlock, Flexpod solutions
  • 2006-2009: Sigmanet (ConvergeONE) - Sr. Network Engineer - VAR Route/Switch Lead, presales, design, and implement 40+ mid-to-large campus/datacenter/wlan networking projects
  • 1997-2006: Network Engineer for UC San Diego, Newgen, Teletech, Computer Science Corp, plus various startups and ecommerce companies. Personally configured and deployed over 2500 cisco devices (routers, switches, AP’s) into datacenters and campus LANs.
  • Started career as a Network Technician at 17, achieved CCNP certification in 1998. Then it was 🚀

Highlighted Core Skills

  • Nutanix
  • Vmware
  • Kubernetes
  • AWS, Azure
  • Compute (Servers, GPUs, Linux)
  • Storage, Data Protection
  • Networking (Routing/Switching, TCP/IP)
  • Python (scripting, automation, API’s)
  • LLM Frameworks, Tooling, Observability (Langchain, etc)
  • LLM Deployment, Management