Senior Director, Solutions Architecture/Engineering (Remote: USA)

About the Position

We are looking for a Senior Director to lead the Solutions Architecture/Engineering (SASE) team. This entrepreneurial driven colleague would help support Cologix’ sales team in developing and closing sales by providing colocation/networking expertise and pre-sales technical support for prospects, customers and partners across our North American Platform. The position offers a direct growth path into Vice President, SASE.

The Sr. Director will lead a team of engineers and technicians in support of the customers to develop designs specifically tailored to the individual customer. The Sr. Director will provide both technical guidance to the SASE team as well as managerial oversight and promote growth within the team.

The candidate will be a key component in educating customers of all sizes, from retail to hyperscale, on the value proposition of Cologix and participating in deep technical discussions to ensure solutions are designed for successful deployment.

The Sr. Director will be knowledgeable in, and support, all of Cologix’ product lines, proficient in colocation/networking environments and will effectively manage a demanding schedule among a wide variety of technical and pre-sales goals. They should have a high-level understanding of the cloud services networking environments (private/public/hybrid) to define customer requirements and translate those requirements into Cologix technical solutions.

The role of the Sr. Director will be to act as a technical advisor/consultant for Cologix’ customers, and the Cologix’ sales team, architecting creative and complex co-location and IT/cloud/networking solutions for our customers. The role requires a broad range of knowledge and understanding of critical facilities (electrical, mechanical, and low voltage systems) and high performing infrastructure as well as an understanding of lower levels of the OSI model.

The Sr. Director should be able to articulate solutions to both technical and non-technical audiences. They will also provide technical leadership and mentoring to other internal groups, executives and thought leaders within the organization.

This position supports all of Cologix North American platform (US and Canada) and therefore may require approximately 30% travel. Primary focus will be on the eastern US market. The Sr. Director may also be required to travel to other markets where customer IT / engineering groups are located to conduct and lead on-site meetings that are presented to customers.

Essential Skills and Responsibilities

• Broad knowledge of Internet technologies including servers, networking equipment and storage design solutions for colocation, hosting and cloud.
• Broad knowledge of AI systems and AI system architecture.
• Broad knowledge of critical facilities including an understanding of electrical / generation and mechanical systems.
• Broad knowledge of data center telecom cabling standards
• Able to quickly and accurately assess current operations, identify design flaws, and build consensus on both a proposed solution and plan of action.
• Strong ability to focus ambiguous customer needs into specific, deliverable requirements.
• Ability to extract hidden or unrealized customer requirements and gain consensus with the prospect.
• Independently develop relationships and communicate with high-level internal and external technical staff.
• Able to design and present highly technical concepts and specifics solutions to internal and external audiences of varying technical capabilities in a clear, concise and easily understood manner.
• Influence cross functional departments to gain alignment and to drive design solutions with the appropriate organizations.
• Become highly involved in establishing/updating the deal process across all involved functions (SASE, sales, finance, operations, legal, procurement, etc.)

Qualifications - What makes you a good fit

15 - 20+ years of technical experience – colocation/hosting/cloud companies, either operations or technical sales position preferred

Effective solutions sales capabilities. Demonstrates advanced solution selling abilities and effective, proactive customer communications including proposal development, delivery

Managerial/team leading experience. Proven ability to mentor staff and grow internally.

Detailed knowledge of hosting technologies. Attention to detail with excellent organizational capabilities to manage multiple concurrent projects

Experience understanding RFP/RFI/RFQ formats and responses

Comprehend, analyze, and interpret complex project documents and interpret for all audiences.

Hands on approach and understanding of the project, customer, and internal team needs and capabilities to balance level of involvement to ensure customer and Cologix success.

Ability to combine technical elements with business needs and business requirements of clients. Collaborative approach with internal stakeholders is critical

Understand the impact of infrastructure technology on business challenges, processes and efficiency

Confident, articulate and comfortable driving a conversation or presentation

Able to manage high-level activity

Ability to work independently and consistently achieve results

One or more of the following certifications highly preferred

CDCP / CDFOS / CNCDP or equivalent knowledge/experience…