Job Description

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. 

The Role

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.

The Requirements

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.

A bit about us

Digital Realty is the leading provider of carrier and cloud neutral data centre services 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 28 countries on 6 continents. We've 3,500+ colleagues around the world who work together, come up with life-changing solutions and create connections that matter every day.

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