Sr. Solutions Engineer
Digital Realty · Chicago, IL, United States ·
- Work mode
- Hybrid
- Seniority
- Senior
- Employment
- Full time
- Category
- Solutions engineering
- Experience
- 3+ years
- Visa sponsorship
- No
- Company size
- 1000+
- Salary
- USD 140,000 – 160,000 / year
Position Title: Solutions Engineer
Your role
Join the world’s leading data center experts and help design infrastructure solutions for some of the most innovative customers on the planet. As a Solutions Engineer, you will play a critical role in the pre-sales process by providing technical expertise and designing tailored data center solutions that meet customer requirements for space, power, cooling, and connectivity.
Acting as a site-specific Subject Matter Expert (SME) for assigned campuses or buildings, you will collaborate closely with Sales, Regional Strategic Account Solutions Engineers, Design Engineering, Operations, Portfolio Management, and Design & Construction teams to drive successful outcomes—from initial customer engagement through seamless handoff to implementation.
This role blends customer-facing engagement, technical design excellence, and cross-functional collaboration to deliver optimized, scalable solutions aligned with customer needs and company standards.
What you’ll do
Customer Engagement & Pre-Sales Support
Engage with customers to understand business objectives, technical requirements, and operational challenges.
Conduct site surveys, assessments, and onsite due diligence to gather detailed infrastructure and whitespace requirements.
Support customer RFPs, RFIs, and technical due diligence activities with a focus on site-specific solutions.
Present solutions to customers through technical presentations, workshops, demos, and site visits, clearly articulating features, benefits, and competitive advantages.
Provide technical expertise during customer tours and solution presentations.
Solution Design & Engineering
Design customized data center solutions optimizing space, power, cooling, airflow, connectivity, telecoms, security, office, and storage as applicable.
Act as the local SME for assigned campuses, including whitespace design, inventory, pathways, connectivity, and capacity management.
Develop detailed technical documentation, proposals, and Scopes of Work (SOW) including clarifications and risk considerations, in collaboration with Regional Design Engineers, and Asset management.
Perform Service Order reviews and cost validation activities to ensure accuracy and alignment with customer requirements.
Commercial & Cross-Functional Collaboration
Obtain pricing and delivery timelines by issuing Sales Engineering Pricing Requests (SEPRs) to Design, Engineering & Construction (DE&C) teams as required.
Support sales forecasting, pipeline development, and market analysis efforts.
Facilitate smooth transitions from sales to implementation by ensuring technical accuracy, consistency, and completeness of handoff documentation.
Market & Product Insight
Stay current on industry trends, emerging technologies, and best practices in data center design through ongoing training and certifications.
Serve as an asset and market expert, relaying insights to Product Management, Asset Management, Global Design, and Advanced Engineering teams.
Gather and communicate customer and sales feedback to support continuous improvement of products, solutions, and go-to-market strategies.
What you’ll need
Education & Experience
Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
3–5 years of experience in a B2B sales engineering or design environment, preferably within data centers, telecom, networking, or high-tech facilities.
Technical Expertise
Proven experience designing high-density data center solutions, including power, cooling, airflow, and space optimization.
Familiarity with AI and high-performance computing (HPC) environments, including GPUs and specialized processors.
Knowledge of liquid cooling technologies and industry best practices.
Strong understanding of data center power distribution, UPS systems, and electrical standards.
Strong understanding of network architecture, fiber optics, and connectivity solutions.
Working knowledge of physical and cyber data center security principles.
Proficiency with CAD tools such as AutoCAD, Visio, or similar (CFD modeling experience preferred).
Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and Adobe Acrobat.
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.
To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
A bit about our team
Our Technology & Innovation team strives to innovate alongside our customers and empower their businesses to thrive. We work closely with our customers to develop insights-based, data-driven technical solutions and differentiated value propositions on PlatformDIGITAL® across the world. Operating in almost 50 cities globally means we understand how rapidly the world is evolving, so we’ve built a best-in-class development model to qualify, package; and enable cloud to core to edge hybrid IT solutions. Our deep technical heritage, combined with our global footprint, means the Technology Innovation team can create and deploy services and solutions that are at the heart of the digital economy.
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.
Apply today, take charge of your career and grow your talents 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.
Our published pay ranges reflect the minimum and maximum target for new hire pay for the full-time position determined by role, level, and geographical location. Individual pay is based on additional factors including but not limited to job-related skills, experience, and relevant education and/or training. Moreover, an employee’s total compensation package varies by role and may include salary, cash bonus or commissions, and equity awards not quantified below.
Compensation range $140,000 – $160,000. This compensation range represents the Company’s good faith belief as to what it will pay as a base salary for this position at the time of this posting.
Benefits: For this role, Benefits include medical, dental, vision, life and AD&D insurance, 401k match, disability benefits, wellness and education benefits, employee stock purchase plan, paid time off, holidays, and more.
The Solutions Engineer is responsible for translating customer requirements into robust data center infrastructure solutions, ensuring technical accuracy and value delivery. They lead the design and presentation of solutions, coordinate proposal generation, and manage pricing and negotiations to secure successful outcomes. The role requires close collaboration with cross-functional teams to facilitate multi-site deployments and maintain alignment with project goals. As the technical face for customers, the engineer provides expert guidance throughout the sales cycle and supports the technical evaluation of RFI/RFPs. They also contribute insights to design and implementation teams, fostering innovation and continuous improvement. Relationship-building with stakeholders and proactive issue resolution are key aspects of this position.Bachelors degree in science, engineering, or related discipline (or equivalent experience) required. 7-10 years experience in data center sector or telecommunications. Prior management experience essential. Experience in data center design, infrastructure management, and sales environments. Familiarity with Salesforce, AutoCAD, Visio (basic level). Electrical, mechanical, or building services engineering experience. ITIL Expert and/or project management certifications desirable. Ability to travel and work onsite as required.