Partner Technical Manager - Japanese speaking

Corporate Overview
Proofpoint is a leading cybersecurity company protecting organizations’ greatest assets and biggest risks: vulnerabilities in people. With an integrated suite of cloud-based solutions, Proofpoint helps companies around the world stop targeted threats, safeguard their data, and make their users more resilient against cyber-attacks. Leading organizations of all sizes, including more than half of the Fortune 1000, rely on Proofpoint for people-centric security and compliance solutions mitigating their most critical risks across email, the cloud, social media, and the web. We are singularly devoted to helping our customers protect their greatest assets and biggest security risk: their people. That’s why we’re a leader in next-generation cybersecurity.

Protection Starts with People.  Proofpoint.

The Role

The role of the Partner Technical Manager is to work as a trusted advisor to Proofpoint’s Partners so that they can effectively communicate the full value of Proofpoint’s products and services to their customers, can manage customers through incidents and escalations, and can develop a comprehensive cyber security strategy for their customers, ultimately maximizing renewals and add-on transactions for Proofpoint’s products and services.

This is a technical role in a fast-paced environment that demands interaction with partner senior levels, as well as with partner technical staff within the traditional IT and Security organization. 

Successful candidates will have an excellent technical and security software foundation, especially related to Linux, messaging, and cloud services, a proven track record of successfully interfacing with customers/partners on both technical and non-technical levels, substantial experience driving concurrent projects and issues to completion with little direction, and above all, a passion for ensuring a top quality customer experience through successful preparation with customer partners.

This position is based in Tokyo, Japan.

Your day-to-day

• Independently provide ongoing and proactive technical leadership and support to Proofpoint’s strategic partners with little direction. 

  • Build and maintain strong relationships with partner contacts assigned to customer accounts

  • Lead technical discussions and provide architectural guidance

  • Monitor customer health metrics and proactively address concerns with the partner contacts

  • Manage and monitor support interactions, serving as an internal advocate for strategic partners, responding to partner/customer escalations, and proactively escalating when needed.

  • Direct crisis and incident response, working in conjunction with the partners, technical support, operations and engineering teams to ensure timely resolution.

  • Coordinate internal teams for the partners to resolve customer issues

  • Meet regularly with partners, both remotely and on-site, to review support interactions, system status, major issues, upcoming releases, product roadmaps and other pertinent items.

  • Create and deliver executive customer presentations for the partners to deliver that outline system performance, potential issues, ROI and suggested forward courses of action.

  • Develop deep understanding of the partner’s business and operational needs.
     

• ​Maintain deep practical technical knowledge of Proofpoint’s integration within the customer's environment, including network, security, systems administration, and messaging management.

  • Develop and oversee a comprehensive strategy to meet complex customer requirements utilizing Proofpoint’s solutions and share with our partners for delivery to their customers.

  • Provide proactive recommendations that support the customer's requirements, product roadmaps and ongoing technical needs and share with our partners.

  • Identify and prioritize short term and long-term goals for partners and partner customers.

  • Plan and lead process improvement initiatives, as relayed by partners, tailored to improve customer satisfaction by working as an influential representative for the partners with the Proofpoint Product Teams.

  • Plan, document, and identify risks and challenges for production changes that span multiple services or technologies.
     

• Requires little supervision on assigned tasks. 

  • ​​Works independently on routine tasks.

  • Responsible for scheduling own time and for quality completion of multiple tasks within a varying environment of changing constraints.

  • Uses independent judgment within broad parameters.

  • Designs and implements solutions to complex problems with minimum supervision.

What you bring to the team

• 4+ years of industry experience in a client/professional services, sales engineer, senior support engineer, IT operations management, or senior engineer role with exposure to multiple technology areas

• Knowledge of data communication concepts and technologies, specifically email and networking

• Knowledge of Linux, SMTP, and MySQL.

• Working knowledge of Windows, Active Directory, and Microsoft Exchange.

• Very strong customer service and excellent communications skills, both written and oral

• A history of successfully leading and directing technical staff through crisis situations

• Adaptable and willing to learn new technologies

• Knowledge of project management and strong time management skills

• Ability to effectively work in a team environment as well as independently

Why Proofpoint