Solution Director (Data Center)

Computacenter North America • Buffalo Grove, Chicago

Buffalo Grove, Chicago
217055-en_US

About the role
The Director of Data Center Solutions Engineering is responsible for leading, growing, and scaling the Data Center Solutions practice across mid-market and enterprise accounts, including highly complex environments such as Fortune 500 organizations and high-performance computing environments (e.g., high-frequency trading firms).
This is a hands-on, Customer-facing role with Leadership responsibilities. The Director will actively lead large and complex solution engagements while mentoring and developing a team of Solutions Architects. This leader will set technical direction, ensure architectural rigor, maintain OEM alignment, and partner closely with Sales to drive profitable growth.
The Director serves as the senior technical authority for Data Center solutions, accountable for technical strategy, deal quality, governance, and team development.
Travel to customer meetings and strategic OEM engagements is expected.


Annual salary range: $175K - $215K USD + Commission


What you'll be doing


Practice Leadership & Strategy

  • Own and grow the Data Center Line of Business across compute, storage, networking, power, cooling, and hybrid infrastructure.
  • Develop and execute go-to-market strategies aligned to enterprise and mid-market segments.
  • Establish technical standards, architectural frameworks, and design governance.
  • Ensure solutions meet profitability targets while maintaining competitive positioning.


Hands-On Technical Leadership – Player/Coach

  • Personally lead and architect large, transformational, and technically complex opportunities.
  • Act as executive technical sponsor on strategic pursuits.
  • Provide architectural oversight on high-density, low-latency, and mission-critical environments.
  • Validate solution designs across compute, storage, networking, security, power, and cooling.
  • Guide infrastructure modernization, hybrid cloud transitions, and data center consolidation initiatives.


Sales & Large Deal Support

  • Partner with Sales Leadership to identify, qualify, and close large-scale opportunities.
  • Support complex RFPs and executive presentations.
  • Lead governance reviews, articulate risk mitigation strategies, and defend architectural decisions.
  • Drive complex negotiations and transformational sales engagements.
  • Ensure forecast accuracy and disciplined pipeline management.


Team Development & Mentorship

  • Player Coach who will mentor and develop a team of Solutions Architects.
  • Provide technical coaching, deal review, and escalation support.
  • Foster cross-team collaboration and best practice sharing.
  • Build succession plans and elevate the technical depth of the team.
  • Participate in recruiting, interviewing, and hiring senior architectural talent.


OEM & Partner Engagement

  • Develop and maintain senior-level OEM relationships.
  • Influence partner roadmaps and access executive technical resources.
  • Drive strategic alignment with key vendors in compute, networking, storage, and emerging technologies.
  • Ensure alignment with channel strategy and incentive programs.


What you have


Ideal Experience & Qualifications

  • 10–15+ years in enterprise infrastructure architecture or data center engineering.
  • 5+ years leading senior Solutions Architects or engineering teams.
  • Experience designing and supporting:
  • Enterprise and multi-site data centers
  • High-density compute environments
  • Low-latency infrastructures
  • Hybrid cloud integration
  • Demonstrated experience closing multi-million-dollar infrastructure deals.
  • Strong financial acumen (TCO, ROI, margin modeling, pricing strategy).
  • Proven experience presenting to CIO, CTO, and executive stakeholders.
  • Deep understanding of OEM ecosystems and channel dynamics.
  • Experience supporting highly regulated or performance-sensitive environments (e.g., financial services, healthcare, HPC).
  • Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required.


Technical Depth Expectations


The ideal candidate must demonstrate hands-on expertise in:

  • Compute (rack, blade, HCI, GPU-enabled workloads)
  • Enterprise storage (SAN/NAS/NVMe)
  • Modern networking architectures (leaf-spine, SDN)
  • Data protection & disaster recovery
  • Power architecture (UPS topology, redundancy models, kW per rack planning)
  • Cooling strategy (containment models, high-density cooling)
  • Hybrid cloud integration and automation frameworks


This leader must be capable of whiteboarding complex infrastructure in real time and defending design decisions at both technical and executive levels.


Leadership Characteristics

  • Technically credible and commercially sharp
  • Comfortable leading in front of executive stakeholders
  • Structured and disciplined in governance
  • Strategic thinker with tactical execution capability
  • High sense of urgency and accountability
  • Collaborative across Sales, Services, and OEM partners
  • Strong communicator with executive presence


This role combines:

  • Practice growth
  • Large-deal technical leadership
  • Team development
  • OEM strategy
  • Governance rigor
  • Profit accountability

Why you should choose us

Freedom & trust

At Computacenter, you can really thrive by having the autonomy to do the right thing, for the long-term benefit of your customers in our unique can-do culture. Our Sales professionals are trusted with high- profile customers and manage large-scale, complex projects.

Your work. Your time

Our culture means that you’re free to decide how best to manage your time and workload. All that matters is that you’re delivering your best for our customers and that you pursue a healthy work/life balance.

Celebrating success

Our two-day annual Group Kick-off event is an international sales conference like no other! It’s a great opportunity to network with your peers from Europe, Asia, and beyond. Learn, be inspired, and help celebrate the success of your team and your colleagues.

Showing appreciation & having fun

Great performance is recognized, so too the willingness to help others. Our Bravo! and tenure recognition scheme schemes are just a taste of how we say thank you for all that you do. And when it comes to recognizing success, we love to celebrate. Our company and team events are legendary!

Open communication

Despite our size, we’re an open organization that doesn’t hide behind hierarchy. We communicate regularly, openly, and directly. For us, it’s about being straightforward, delivering, and doing the right thing. Essentially, we’re people dealing with people!

Inclusive workplace

People work best when they bring their whole selves to work; that’s why we see and value you as the individual you are. We take a genuine interest in you that extends beyond skills, knowledge, and experience. Our Employee Impact Groups champion best practice, celebrate diversity, and promote inclusion within our industry.

Personal development

We offer unlimited opportunities for your personal growth and development with a structure that offers clear paths for progression. Our people have advanced to become some of the most successful leaders across the global industry – and we’re proud of this.

Health & wellbeing

Our people are our greatest asset, and we’re passionate about supporting you in feeling good and staying healthy. We offer a comprehensive Employee Assistance Program, a ‘Be well’ app (powered by Humanoo), Mental Health First Aiders, wellbeing webinars, wellness fairs, and much more.

Tuition reimbursement

Interested in continuing your formal education or pursuing various certifications? Computacenter provides up to $5,250 in tuition reimbursement for full time employees. We value continuing education, and this assistance includes tuition, books, registration fees, and more.

Pension & financial security

Thinking ahead, planning for life’s uncertainties, or simply saving for a rainy day? For our people based in the US, we offer automatic enrollment onto our 401(k)-retirement plan with a company match. For our Canadian colleagues we offer enrollment onto a Registered Retirement Savings Plan provided by Canada Life where we’ll match 25% up to 6% of your base earnings. Irrespective of where you’re based, you’ll also have access to our financial advisors who can help you with your retirement planning needs.

Parental leave

If you’re expanding your family, you can utilize our parental leave program that provides twelve weeks of 100% paid leave for birthing parents, and two weeks of paid leave for non-birthing parents. Grow your family with peace of mind as you grow professionally with us.

Flexible benefits

We offer a wide range of benefits that you can tailor to fit you needs. In addition to great medical, dental, and vision coverage options, we also provide 100% company-paid life insurance, and short- and long-term disability insurance. Our easy to navigate employee benefits platform, you’ll have the opportunity to enroll in supplemental life insurance.

You belong

You belong

At Computacenter, we celebrate difference, and it’s important to us that we have a working culture where you can be free to be yourself. We provide an environment where you feel valued, respected, and supported to reach your full potential, and experience a sense of belonging. Because we know when you thrive, we thrive.

As a proud equal opportunities employer, we’re committed to ensuring that there is fair and equal access for everyone. Your application to join the team is considered on its merits regardless of your age, disability, ethnicity, gender identity, marital status, pregnancy, parenthood, religion or belief, sex or sexual orientation, veteran status, or any other characteristics protected by law. All that matters to us is that you share our vision and values, and you bring the experience and skills we need.

We welcome applications from disabled people and accept applications in alternative formats.

Winning Together

At Computacenter, we have been writing success stories for more than 40 years. Today, we’re driving digital transformation with over 20,000 employees worldwide. We develop IT strategies, implement new technologies and manage complex infrastructures.

As a proud, independent partner to some of the world’s leading technology providers, our portfolio covers workplace, applications & data, cloud & data center, security, and networking. What’s the secret of our success? Quite simply, it’s our people.

The people who bring their unique skills and perspectives to a diverse and inclusive environment that enables them to reach their full potential.

Winning Together

We are an award-winning employer!

We’re aware that fraudsters are using imposter websites, email addresses, and text messages to advertise fake job opportunities. Computacenter only advertises roles on this website, LinkedIn and our own social media accounts, and via carefully selected reputable third parties. We never interview or make offers of employment using instant messages or ask for money. Please remember to be vigilant. If you’ve received something and you want to make sure it’s genuine, please contact us.

powered by talentsconnect