Solutions Engineer - Cloud & AI Infrastructure

Cisco; Manchester; On-site; GBP 50,000 - 70,000; Full time

Job summary

Cisco is seeking a Solutions Engineer focusing on Cloud + AI Infrastructure to join our sales team in the UK&I. The role involves collaborating with customers to implement Cisco’s data center and cloud solutions while becoming a trusted technical advisor. This position requires strong engagement with diverse audiences, public speaking skills, and in-depth knowledge in areas such as infrastructure automation and virtualization.

Candidates should have at least 3 years of relevant experience, and a Bachelor’s degree in a related field is preferred. Join Cisco to help revolutionize data and infrastructure in the AI era.

Qualifications

• 3+ years of technical presales or solutions engineering experience.
• Hands-on experience with virtualization platforms.
• Proficiency in infrastructure automation scripting.

Responsibilities

• Drive adoption of Cisco’s data center and cloud solutions.
• Partner with customers on platform architecture.
• Act as a link between technical teams and customers.

Skills

Technical presales experience

Solutions engineering

Infrastructure automation

Public speaking

Education

Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field

Tools

VMware/VCF

Ansible

Terraform

Job description

What You’ll Do

We are seeking a Solutions Engineer – Cloud + AI Infrastructure to join our sales team in the UK&I. In this role you will help drive the adoption of Cisco’s data center, cloud, and AI‑ready infrastructure solutions across industries. You will partner with customers to understand their modernization goals, support the design of tailored platform architectures, and demonstrate how Cisco’s compute, networking, and cloud‑native technologies accelerate their business. You’ll bring strong infrastructure foundations and a drive to become a trusted technical advisor to customers. You should be comfortable translating technical concepts for diverse audiences and public speaking.

Who You’ll Work With

The Cloud + AI Infrastructure team delivers one scalable strategy with local execution for data center transformation and growth. We are the worldwide go‑to‑market compute and data center networking engine—capturing market transitions and enabling sellers to expand growth for customers and Cisco. Alongside our colleagues, we build the sales strategy, activate sellers and technical communities, and accelerate selling.

Who You Are

You build awareness, foster education, and drive energy for platform modernization, cloud‑native infrastructure, and AI‑ready data centers with internal teams, partners, and customers. You act as the link between technical teams, account teams, and partners/customers. You showcase infrastructure solutions, articulate their value, and contribute to architectural discussions. You play a key role in the design, and promotion of modernization solutions and in solving customer challenges. Travel may be required for customer meetings and industry events.

Minimum Qualifications

• 3+ years of technical presales, solutions engineering, or relevant hands‑on infrastructure experience across compute, storage, and data center networking.
• Hands‑on experience with virtualization and platform modernization (e.g., VMware/VCF, RedHat OpenShift, Nutanix, KVM, hypervisor migration strategies).
• Familiarity with enterprise storage concepts and platforms (e.g., NVMe, NFS, object storage; NetApp, Everpure, or comparable).
• Solid understanding of data center networking fundamentals (L2/L3, VXLAN/EVPN, fabric design) and how compute, storage, and network integrate.
• Foundational understanding of Kubernetes and cloud‑native infrastructure—core concepts, deployment models, and how containerized workloads are managed.
• Proficiency with infrastructure automation and scripting (e.g., Python, Ansible, Terraform) and version control (Git/GitHub).

Preferred Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or related field; advanced degree is a plus.
• Excellent presentation skills with the ability to deliver engaging workshops to both technical and non‑technical audiences on infrastructure and modernization topics.
• Experience with the Cisco data center portfolio (UCS, Nexus/ACI, Intersight, HyperFabric) or comparable competitive platforms.
• Exposure to cloud‑native networking and eBPF technologies (e.g., Cilium/Isovalent), GitOps workflows (ArgoCD/Flux), Helm, and service mesh.
• Familiarity with AI‑ready infrastructure: GPU compute, high‑performance fabrics (RoCE/InfiniBand), AI/ML reference architectures (e.g., Cisco + NVIDIA), and storage for AI workloads.
• Relevant industry certifications (e.g., CCNP/CCIE Data Center, VMware VCP, CKA/CKAD, or major cloud associate/professional certs).
• Familiarity with data center observability and monitoring tooling (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, ThousandEyes, Splunk).
• Understanding of infrastructure security and zero‑trust principles in data center / cloud‑native environments (segmentation, workload identity, policy enforcement).

Why Cisco?

At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint. Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere. We are Cisco, and our power starts with you.