Inside Solutions Architect I - Datacenter

The Inside Solutions Architect I (Datacenter) is a presales technical resource responsible for leading consultative discovery of clients business goals, technical requirements, and operational challenges, then translating those needs into scalable, supportable, and business-aligned server, compute, converged infrastructure, and datacenter solutions. The primary objective of the ISA I is to support revenue growth, profitability, technical win rate, and customer success throughout the sales cycle.

The Datacenter ISA I serves as a trusted advisor to customers, account executives, and internal stakeholders by designing and recommending solutions spanning rack and blade servers; compute platforms; converged and hyperconverged infrastructure; power, cooling, and physical datacenter infrastructure; hybrid cloud integration; and related professional and managed services. This role combines strong technical knowledge with business acumen to help customers modernize datacenter infrastructure, improve reliability and operational efficiency, and support future growth.

The ideal candidate has a solid foundation in server and datacenter infrastructure, experience working directly with customers in a presales or sales environment, and the ability to communicate effectively with both technical and executive-level audiences.

• The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• Participate in customer discovery sessions to identify customer business objectives, current-state infrastructure, data-growth patterns, availability requirements, recovery objectives, security considerations, and solution constraints.
• Assist with the design and recommendation of server, compute, rack infrastructure, power and cooling, converged and hyperconverged infrastructure, and hybrid datacenter solutions that align with customer goals, technical standards, and budget requirements.
• Partner with sales teams and senior technical resources to support opportunities throughout the sales cycle.
• Create and validate Bills of Materials (BoMs), technical proposals, solution diagrams, quotes, and supporting documentation for multi-vendor server, compute, converged infrastructure, and datacenter solutions.
• Develop working knowledge of server technologies, processor and memory sizing, rack and blade systems, converged and hyperconverged infrastructure, power and cooling, and hybrid datacenter solutions.
• Support technical presentations, product demonstrations, workshops, assessments, and architecture discussions for customers and internal stakeholders.
• Review designs, configurations, licensing, support requirements, and quotes to ensure technical accuracy and alignment with documented customer needs.
• Identify potential lifecycle refresh, expansion, services, and adjacent-solution opportunities and bring them to the appropriate sales or technical lead.
• Collaborate with vendor partners, distributors, and internal technical resources to develop accurate customer solutions.
• Maintain current knowledge of industry trends, emerging technologies, competitive offerings, vendor programs, and product roadmaps.
• Contribute to internal documentation, knowledge sharing, and process improvements while actively seeking coaching and feedback.

• Develop familiarity of Zones professional and managed services portfolio and integrate relevant services into solution recommendations.

  Education Requirement

• BA/BS in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Management Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

  Certification Requirements

• No major technical vendor certification is required at the time of hire.
• The candidate is expected to work toward relevant foundational or associate-level certifications from strategic datacenter vendors as part of an agreed development plan.
• Vendor sales or foundational technical accreditations from Dell Technologies, HPE, Lenovo, Nutanix, NVIDIA, Vertiv, APC, Microsoft, AWS, or other strategic vendors are preferred but not required.

• Develop and maintain vendor competencies assigned to support team and business priorities.

  Required Experience

• Minimum of 3+ years of experience in IT implementation, infrastructure, engineering, technical support, or related roles.
• Minimum of 2+ years in a field- or customer-facing presales, sales, sales engineering, consulting, or similar role.
• Demonstrated experience designing server, compute, converged infrastructure, and datacenter solutions across multiple technologies or vendors.
• Foundational understanding of server components and sizing, rack and blade systems, virtualization dependencies, converged or hyperconverged infrastructure, power and cooling, and hybrid datacenter concepts.
• Ability to gather customer requirements and contribute to accurate, supportable solution designs under guidance.
• Excellent written, verbal, presentation, and customer communication skills.
• Ability to explain technical concepts clearly to customers, sales teams, colleagues, and management.
• Ability to manage multiple assigned activities and priorities in a fast-paced sales environment.
• Strong customer service, collaboration, problem-solving, and organizational skills.

• Willingness to learn new products, pursue technical development, and accept coaching and feedback.

  Key Metrics That Define Success

• Revenue growth, quota attainment support, and gross margin contribution.
• Accuracy and completeness of Bills of Materials, quotes, solution documentation, and technical handoffs.
• Responsiveness to customers, sales teams, vendor partners, and internal stakeholders.
• Development of server, compute, datacenter infrastructure, hybrid cloud, and services knowledge.
• Customer satisfaction and development of trusted-advisor relationships.
• Progress toward agreed technical certifications and vendor competencies to support strategic vendor partnerships.
• Identification of relevant lifecycle, upsell, cross-sell, professional services, and managed services opportunities.

• Consistent use of discovery, documentation, quality-review, and opportunity-management processes.

  About You

• You have a foundational understanding of server and datacenter technologies and are motivated to deepen your technical expertise.
• You are customer-focused, dependable, responsive, and comfortable supporting customer-facing sales engagements.
• You can organize technical details, ask effective questions, and follow through on assigned actions.
• You learn new products and technologies quickly and are willing to pursue certifications as your responsibilities grow.
• You bring a positive, team-oriented mindset and use technical knowledge to help sales teams and customers achieve successful outcomes.