Director - Solutions Engineering – Americas Region

Position Title:  Solutions Engineering Director – Americas Region 

Your role 

This is your opportunity to take ownership of a high-impact, high-visibility leadership position with the largest wholesale data center provider in the world. You’ll enjoy working directly with our customers performing client, tenant and customer-facing engineering functions in support of customer acquisition, project installation and custom construction solutions. You’ll have cradle to grave influence as you serve as the liaison between internal Digital Realty groups and our customers, ensuring projects are moving as planned and the customer is well taken care of. This is a wide-reaching role providing ample opportunity to shine. Though you could be challenged in this position for years to come, if you’re hungry and prove yourself a star, additional advancement opportunities could become available.  

What you’ll do 

It will be your mission to eventually lead a growing technical team of Sales Engineers. Though your leadership responsibilities are at the core of this position, you’ll make an impact across multiple functions as you work collaboratively with your peers, act as a solutions expert, and as the communications hub between cross-functional internal teams, Sales, and customers. This is a role for a hands-on leader that cannot be managed purely from a desk. Not only will you work with your team, you’ll leverage your skill as a Sales Engineer to interact directly with large clients, understanding their needs from a technical infrastructure point-of-view, then helping to drive decisions and consensus with Digital Realty teams including Sales, Design, Construction, Finance - all those involved with project delivery. You’ll respond directly to customers, speed the sales process, drive project delivery, etc. You’ll evangelize our message to the market place, solicit market trends, and deliver the acquired information to Operations, Design, Planning, Construction…any group who will benefit from the intel. More specifically, you will: 

• Direct prospect engagements, including leading building and site tours, sales calls, proposal generation, pricing and contract negotiations. 
• Serve as the “hub” for project communication. 
• Evaluate customer needs, and then design and present a preliminary solution. 
• Assist with customer RFPs. 
• Develop cost-engineering and profitability models for large customer opportunities. 
• Act as a subject matter expert related to the infrastructure, nuances and pitfalls associated with various buildings. 
• Act as an "eyes-on" resource and provide support to remote Design and Construction teams during bid, construction and commissioning processes. 
• Participate in forecasting, pipeline and market analysis. 
• Liaise with the professional community, including attending technical forums and presenting papers at industry events. 
• Monitor and evaluate trends in prospect, customer and target tenant base. 
•   

Note: this description is intended to give you a general overview of the position and is not an exhaustive listing of duties and responsibilities. 

What you’ll need

The ideal candidate for this role will have experience as a Sales Engineer in a data center or colocation environment, and a track record of success in a sales leadership role. To be a strong fit for the Director, Sales Engineering, you will have: 

• 5+ years of relevant experience working with a data center or colocation provider, OR 
• 8+ years working in telecommunications, networking, data security, hosting, high tech facilities, mission-critical construction, engineering consulting or other related field. 
• The ability to work directly with customers to understand their needs, then work cross-functionally with multiple internal stakeholders to provide a solution including cabinet configuration, electrical design, cooling strategies and connectivity. 
• Exceptional interpersonal and polished presentation skills and the ability to speak intelligently with big data / power users. 
• Experience and skill leading and motivating a technical sales team.   
• Technical savvy and a solid understanding of at least one of the following: 
• ·          
• Networking 
• Electrical provisioning / configuration. 
• Mechanical cooling systems. 
• Proven project management skills including experience with document management and project tracking. 
• The ability to work well under pressure and take a proactive approach in handling issues, providing solutions and/or acting as a change manager. 
• Good organizational skills, attention to detail and openness to new ideas and procedures. 
• Expert application software skills including, MS Word and Excel; Visio; AutoCAD; and Adobe Acrobat. 
• A bachelor's degree, ideally in Mechanical, Electrical or Computer Engineering, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.   
• Preferred but not required: 
• Experience leading data center / telecom projects, including coordinating design, subcontractors and construction. 
• Experience estimating and tracking costs associated with client installations or similar projects. 
• Familiarity with telecom carrier operations / business models. 
• Knowledge of all applicable rules, laws and ordinances in performing data / communications projects particular to meet-me room (MMR) and colocation areas. 

In addition to these requirements, you should be willing to travel between 30% and 50% of the time. Generally, you'll travel every two to three weeks, spending two to three days away. 

Keys to Success 

The Sales Engineering team is a tight-knit group of personable and technically skilled professionals. To earn credibility and gain respect, you’ll need to exhibit confidence and competence and work collaboratively with your team. Likewise, throughout Digital Realty you’ll build strong relationships and serve as a linchpin, working directly with the customer and quickly and actively communicating between all project personnel. There is always a great deal of internal dialog, and without open communication channels, it will be impossible to do your job well. For example, you’ll work closely with Marketing, helping with new product branding and ongoing campaigns. Likewise, you’ll interact with the Design team, helping them understand client specifications and design the best solution. These are just two of the many areas that you'll touch. To be successful, you should be detail oriented, but also able to step back and not get trapped in the details. In other words, you'll leverage both your tactical and strategic capabilities. As Director, Sales Engineering, you’ll need to be a master at balancing your management responsibilities with tasks requiring direct customer interaction and project management skills. It should be clear by now that this role has a wide-variety of responsibilities, all of which require exceptional interpersonal and relationship building skills. If you’re not just a delegator, but a doer and driver willing to get down in the weeds when necessary and able to build relationships with all of those you touch, you’ll do well in the role and our culture. 

A bit about us

Digital Realty brings companies and data together by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers with a secure data meeting place and a proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx®) solution methodology for powering innovation and efficiently managing Data Gravity challenges. Digital Realty gives its customers access to the connected data communities that matter to them with a global data center footprint of 300+ facilities in 50+ metros across 25+ countries on six continents.

To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

A bit about our Digital team 

Technology & Innovation

Our Technology & Innovation team strives to innovate alongside our customers and empower their businesses to thrive. We work closely with our customers to develop insights-based, data-driven technical solutions and differentiated value propositions on PlatformDIGITAL® across the world. Operating in almost 50 cities globally means we understand how rapidly the world is evolving, so we’ve built a best-in-class development model to qualify, package; and enable cloud to core to edge hybrid IT solutions. Our deep technical heritage, combined with our global footprint, means the Technology Innovation team can create and deploy services and solutions that are at the heart of the digital economy.

What we can offer you

Our rapidly evolving business sector offers the opportunity to be part of a courageous and passionate team who work together to understand and meet the changing needs of our global customers. 

Join us and you’ll be part of a supportive and inclusive environment where you can bring your whole self to work. As part of our team, you’ll get to work with people from different business areas, challenge the way we do things and put your ideas into action. We’ll also give you plenty of development opportunities so you can build a rewarding and successful career with us. 

Our Compensation Philosophy

Digital Realty offers its employees a highly competitive compensation package, excellent benefits, and an environment that recognizes and rewards your contributions. Central to our compensation philosophy is rewarding our employees for achieving the values and objectives aligned to the company's overall goals and values.

This is an exciting time to join our business so apply now and make your mark on our future.

Notes:

The above statements are intended to describe the general nature and level of work being performed by people assigned to this job. They are not intended to be an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, and skills required of personnel so classified.

Digital Realty is an equal opportunity employer, EOE/AA/M/F/Vets/Disabled.  All applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, national origin, disability or protected veteran status, or other status protected by law or Company policy.

Digital Realty is a publicly traded company (NYSE: DLR) with investment grade ratings from all three major ratings agencies.

Please do not forward unsolicited resumes to any employee of Digital Realty and its subsidiaries. Digital Realty is not responsible for any fees related to unsolicited referrals.