Hassan Aboulkacem Principal Solutions Architect
San Francisco, CA • solutionsarchitect@gmail.com • +1 4155-7788
Profile Summary
- Principal Solutions Architect with 12 years of experience across enterprise data and analytics platforms in lakehouse, ML platform, and data governance, specializing in reference architecture, multi-workload POCs, and Fortune 500 security reviews.
- Hands-on across primary product platform (Databricks), primary cloud target (AWS), identity layer (Okta), integration runtimes (Terraform), security-questionnaire tools (Loopio), competitive intel (Klue), and an architecture cert (AWS Solutions Architect Professional), with strong fundamentals in executive-grade architectural storytelling, deep hands-on chops, and a steady hand through long enterprise cycles.
- Deep expertise in reference architecture design, executive architecture briefings, multi-workload POCs, and strategic enterprise close, using methodologies such as MEDDPICC qualification and Well-Architected reviews to land strategic enterprise deals that land on architectural conviction.
- Pairs shoulder-to-shoulder with Enterprise AEs, VP Sales, Product, Engineering, Security, and Field CTO office inside strategic enterprise account teams, showing up to executive briefings, architecture review boards, and deal-strategy councils with a pragmatic, technical-conviction-first mindset.
- Senior SA who shares architecture craft and fosters a culture of architectures that survive a CISO review and written architecture decisions on every commitment through architecture clinics and battlecard workshops, while running SA mentoring and architecture-review circles and authoring widely shared reference-architecture and POC playbooks.
Tools & Skills
- Architecture & Design:
- Reference architectures, C4 diagrams, Well-Architected reviews, TOGAF, ArchiMate, ADR documentation, deployment topologies
- Product & Domain:
- Databricks, lakehouse architecture, Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, MLflow, Spark, data governance, streaming pipelines
- Cloud, Infra & Deployment:
- AWS, Azure, GCP, Kubernetes, Terraform, networking and VPC peering, private link, multi-region deployments
- APIs, SDKs & Integrations:
- REST APIs, Python SDKs, dbt, Airflow, Kafka, Snowflake and BigQuery integration, OAuth and SAML SSO
- Security & Compliance:
- SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP, SIG, CAIQ, SSO and SCIM, key management, network isolation
- Sales Process & CRM:
- Salesforce, Gong, MEDDPICC qualification, mutual action plans, executive briefings, multi-quarter deal strategy
- Competitive & Positioning:
- Klue, Crayon, Gartner, Forrester Wave, architecture battlecards, build-vs-buy positioning, deal-loss interviews
- Certifications & Languages:
- AWS Solutions Architect Professional, Databricks Solutions Architect, Python and Scala (read), SQL (advanced)
Education
UC Berkeley
M.S. in Computer Science
Work Experience
Databricks
Principal Solutions Architect
- Run technical discovery and architectural landscape assessments on Strategic Enterprise deals in the $500K-$5M ARR band, paired with 3 Enterprise AEs, mapping current data estate, modernization drivers, and architectural success criteria through structured MEDDPICC qualification with Chief Data Officers, Chief Architects, and platform leads.
- Lead architecture workshops and executive briefings as executive whiteboard sessions, tying lakehouse capability to business outcomes for technical and exec audiences, running 22 workshops a quarter for CIOs, CISOs, and Chief Data Officers with a 55% workshop-to-POC progression.
- Design reference architectures and solution blueprints for multi-cloud lakehouse deployments, fitting Delta Lake, Unity Catalog, and MLflow into customer stacks alongside Okta SSO and Unity Catalog, authoring 40 reference architectures that survive customer architecture review boards.
- Scope and architect multi-workload POCs in customer VPC deployments, writing joint success criteria across data, apps, and ops with the buyer, validating auth, observability, and DR end-to-end, and leading 14 POCs a year on a 60-day window with a 72% win rate.
- Own the technical win alongside Enterprise AEs and VP Sales through quarterly account strategy reviews, mutual action plans, and joint exec mapping, supporting a territory quota of $28M that closed 9 strategic enterprise deals and finished the year at 124% of plan.
- Architect integrations across the customer stack against Snowflake and dbt, Airflow, Kafka, and identity tooling in Terraform modules, publishing 12 reusable integration patterns and getting buyers to a working reference build in under a week.
- Handle architectural objections and competitive positioning against Snowflake, BigQuery, and customer-built lakehouses, authoring 6 architecture battlecards and defending build-vs-buy reviews in front of Chief Architects and CTOs, lifting competitive win rate to 64% across contested deals.
Cloudera
Senior Sales Engineer
- Led RFPs, security packages, and procurement support through Loopio response libraries, legal-and-security working sessions, and direct CISO calls on contested controls, owning 60 enterprise RFPs and security packages across SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, FedRAMP with a median turnaround of 5 days.
- Captured voice of customer through quarterly architecture reviews with Product and Engineering leadership, surfacing platform gaps, integration friction, and architectural asks from active strategic accounts, and shaping 9 architecture gap patterns that fed 5 roadmap items shipped within the year.
- Ran handoff, adoption, and account expansion through architecture decision records, implementation kickoffs, and a shared architecture canvas, transitioning 18 newly closed accounts into adjacent workloads, lifting year-two expansion to 138%.
- Worked closely with Enterprise AEs, Product, Engineering, Security, and Implementation to coordinate multi-quarter deal strategy and executive briefing programs, identity-and-compliance escalations, and customer advisory boards, authoring 8 SA playbooks that shaped the team's discovery and architecture standard and mentoring 4 incoming Solutions Architects through their first strategic deals.