Introducing Solutions Engineering: The New Title for FAE

Q & A: 

Q: How does the new title Solutions Engineering accurately represent the evolving nature of your role? 

A: Our role is constantly evolving as our partners’ capabilities, and network concepts adapt to ever advancing technologies and requirements.  These changes drive requirements, which still focuses on individual components of the network, but also requires advanced understanding of network architecture design and impacts both technically and across organizations.  

Q: Can you explain how Solutions Engineering combines technical expertise, problem-solving skills, and deep product knowledge to address complex problems? 

A: Solutions Engineering is a very complex and demanding role that has its rewards. Solutions Engineers must understand the individual components of the network as well as the overall network design (end to end).  We must be able to troubleshoot at the component level, physical layer, data layer, as well as at the network level to properly identify the root cause of failure.  This ideology drives us to be technically competent in every layer of the network/application to efficiently and accurately support our partners in real-time.  It is both a strength and differentiator for Precision OT. 

Q: What specific skills and expertise are required for Solutions Engineering, and how does the updated title convey this diversity? 

A: Solutions Engineers need to have a deep technical understanding of the components of a network combined with a thorough understanding of the entire network.  This enables Solutions Engineers to offer comprehensive solutions based upon ISP (Inside Plant), OSP (Outside Plant), Network design/architecture, and operations to exceed customer expectations. Solution Engineers can offer design/network optimization/education/advanced troubleshooting expertise to our partners to achieve faster, more cost-effective, and technologically optimized deployments. 

Q: In what ways do Solutions Engineers drive innovation, optimize processes, and contribute to successful outcomes for clients? 

A: Through the Solutions Engineer’s deep and thorough understanding of all things Network Application centric, a technology or solution can impact many areas of an organization. Solutions Engineers can identify the impacts across an organization, communicate this to the involved teams, and offer advice, suggestions, and develop processes to best manage change. In understanding the organization and end-to-end networks, Solutions Engineers can offer the best solution at the right time while including all within the involved organizations. In some cases, we assign dedicated Solutions Engineers, onsite, as part of our partners team. 

Q: How do the new titles for solutions engineering emphasize the strategic value and multidimensional skill set that professionals in this role bring to the organization? 

A: Precision OT is evolving as our partners evolve.  The market is transforming from just transceivers, or mux/demux, and patch cables to complete system support. Solutions Engineers possess an in-depth technical understanding of the end-to-end network and its applications.  To properly support our partners, we must understand all facets of their network, applications, and operations. 

Q: How do the customized solutions provided by our Solutions Engineers benefit businesses and individuals in addressing their specific challenges? 

A: Solutions Engineers are intimately familiar with the individual components to construct a network. Combining the individual components with an end-to-end network understanding, we are able to provide customized and out of the box ideas to simplify, reduce costs, and accelerate network deployments.   

Q: Can you elaborate on how Solutions Engineering contributes to customer satisfaction and helps businesses achieve their goals? 

A: Quite simply put; Availability, Responsiveness, and Accuracy.  Our goal is to be 100% available to our partners and very responsive to their needs. Accuracy is also a key contributor as Solutions Engineer must be correct in our assessment and advice. This allows our partners to have total confidence in our support and capabilities.  

Q: In what ways does Solutions Engineering optimize processes for clients, leading to increased efficiency and cost-effectiveness? 

A: Often times Engineers are focused on the problem or issue at hand, which we need to.  However, it’s also important to understand the impact on the entire organization. There are instances where a small tradeoff in one area is a huge cost savings in another. One particular instance comes to mind where we identified a solution on the ISP network side only to determine it was much more cost effective to implement a slightly different solution, network wide, as the impact to operations (OSP) was quite a significant cost savings. We were able to offer a single fiber solution for ISP/OSP which simplified and accelerated deployments while driving costs down for our partner.