Manager Solution Architecture

Digital Realty Trust Inc.; Sydney; Hybrid; AUD 150,000 - 220,000; Full time

Job summary

Digital Realty seeks an experienced Manager, Solution Architecture to lead high-impact architectural engagements in Sydney. The role blends strategic architectural thinking with hands-on engineering across compute, storage, and networking, with strong emphasis on AI infrastructure and data center efficiency.

You will drive pre-sales consultation, design robust, scalable solutions, and mentor teams in network design and project management.

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, engineering, information systems, or related field.
• Master’s degree preferred.
• 10+ years in network/infrastructure/solution architecture roles.
• Knowledge of AI/ML infrastructure design and HPC concepts.
• Understanding of data center operations: power, cooling, rack planning.
• Experience with enterprise networking, storage, and compute (virtualized, HCI).
• Familiarity with public cloud platforms and hybrid cloud strategies.
• Containerization skills (Kubernetes, Docker) for AI workloads.
• Relevant certifications (Cisco CCNP/CCIE, NVIDIA, VMware, PMP).

Responsibilities

• Lead solution architecture for customer engagements and drive bookings.
• Conduct workshops and translate customer needs into deliverable requirements.
• Provide technical leadership on network designs, platform sizing, and infra design.
• Assess current operations and identify opportunities for architectural improvements.
• Position solutions with data-driven ROI and total cost of ownership considerations.
• Collaborate with facilities to optimize data center resources (space, power, cooling).

Skills

Solution architecture

Pre-sales

Networking design

Data center optimization

HPC knowledge

AI infrastructure

Strategic thinking

Education

Bachelor's degree in CS/Engineering/IS

Master's degree

Tools

Dell

HPE

NVIDIA GPUs

Cisco

NetApp

Juniper

Job description

Position Title: Manager, Solution Architecture

Location: Sydney

Your role

This role is ideal for a professional with a blend of strategic architectural expertise and hands-on engineering experience across compute, storage, and networking—plus strong domain knowledge in AI infrastructure, Software Defined Networks and data center space, power, and cooling.

What You’ll Do

Solution Selling and Technical Consultation

• Strong ability to focus ambiguous customer needs into specific, deliverable requirements
• Able to facilitate workshop style sessions with customers to extract important areas of customers current architecture. Can keenly couple key insights to present highly technical concepts and solutions specificsto audiences of varying technical capabilities in a clear,concise and easily understood manner
• Professional pre-sales consultation of customer technical requirements to develop viable solutions, resulting in bookings.
• Quickly and accurately assess current operations, identify opportunities for architectural changes to drive additional business benefit
• Ability to extract unrealized customer requirements, and service benefits, gaining consensus with data driven positioning.
• Cost estimation, with a focus of helping customers understand return on investment as well as total cost of ownership advantages of solutions proposed
• Coach and provide technical leadership to others on network designs, platform sizing, infrastructure system design and the application of new technologies and project management methodologies

Networking

• Substantial telecommunications experience required; technical and commercial knowledge of Internet, MPLS and IPVPN topologies and architectures required
• Proficient in router and switch features and configuration, fault tolerant designs, and QOS mapping
• Experience with routing and switching protocols; SDN/NFV, performance measurement, tuning and scaling, and reliability and security techniques
• Experience with Network Peering, Internet Exchanges and CDNs
• Data center networking technologies and architectures (Leaf-Spine architectures, Data Center Interconnect technologies)
• Architect and deploy robust infrastructure using hardware/software from vendors such as Dell, HPE, NVIDIA, Cisco, NetApp, and Juniper.
• Apply deep knowledge of high-performance computing (HPC) and low-latency networking to AI/ML solution design.

Data Center Optimization

• Collaborate with facilities and operations teams to optimize infrastructure deployments based on available rack space, power draw, thermal dynamics, and airflow efficiency.
• Contribute to the planning and provisioning of data center resources, ensuring support for both traditional workloads and AI-intensive environments.
• Evaluate emerging technologies for space, power, and cooling efficiency in next-gen data center deployments.
• Must have a thorough understanding of, and experience with servers, storage, layer 3 networking and enterprise software. Solid understanding of the entire OSI stack is a must
• Experience with data center virtualization, software defined data centers and hyper-converged infrastructure solutions
• Software and Database system development
• Storage Platform technologies (SAN/NAS) including Hardware and Software (EMC/NetApp/Sun/IBM/HP/VMware/Citrix/Brocade/Juniper)
• Must have a thorough understanding of the implication of common IT product on system designs: servers, storage, layer 3 networking, and enterprise software.

Enterprise IT

• Must have a thorough understanding of, and experience with servers, storage, layer 3 networking and enterprise software. Solid understanding of the entire OSI stack is a must
• Experience with data center virtualization, software defined data centers and hyper-converged infrastructure solutions
• Software and Database system development
• Storage Platform technologies (SAN/NAS) including Hardware and Software (EMC/NetApp/Sun/IBM/HP/VMware/Citrix/Brocade/Juniper)
• Must have a thorough understanding of the implication of common IT product on system designs: servers, storage, layer 3 networking, and enterprise software.

Innovative Architecture & Infrastructure Design

• Knowledge of enterprise-grade solutions that integrate hybrid/multi-cloud, AI-ready compute, and intelligent infrastructure platforms.
• Ensure alignment of technical solutions including Interconnectivity, data center space, power, and cooling capacities, incorporating sustainability and energy-efficiency goals.

Knowledge Sharing

• Proactively share knowledge and experience across sales and solutions teams to enable continuous learning and best-practice adoption.
• Develop and maintain reference architectures, design standards, and lab documentation to drive consistency and scalability.

What You’ll Need

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Information Systems, or a related field required.
• Master’s degree preferred.
• 10+ years of hands-on experience in network architecture, infrastructure architecture, systems engineering, or solution architecture.
• Knowledge of AI/ML infrastructure design (e.g., NVIDIA GPUs, distributed compute, high-speed storage).
• Demonstrated understanding of data center operational constraints including power provisioning, rack planning, and cooling technologies.
• Deep knowledge of enterprise networking (routing/switching, SDN), storage platforms (SAN/NAS), and compute systems (virtualized, bare metal, HCI).
• Experience with public cloud platforms (AWS, Azure, GCP) and hybrid cloud strategies.
• Familiarity with HPC architectures and containerization technologies (e.g., Kubernetes, Docker) for AI workloads.
• Relevant technical certifications such as Cisco CCNP/CCIE, NVIDIA Certified, VMware VCP, or PMP.
• Strong communication and presentation skills across diverse audiences.
• Excellent organizational and time-management abilities.
• Strategic thinker with a hands-on approach to technical problem-solving.

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.

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.

Health and Safety

Safety isn't just a priority here at Digital; it's critical to everything we do. Safeguarding lives, protecting assets, and securing data aren't just ideals - they're essential pillars of our commitment to excellence for our people, our partners and our customers. We have a culture of care where every member of Team Digital embraces a relentless pursuit of working safely across Digital Realty. Together we are Safely Powering Progress.

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.