Senior Director, AI Platforms

JOB SUMMARY

The Sr Director, AI Platforms is the senior technical leader accountable for building and operating Trace3's AI Platforms practice within the Infrastructure & Operations Business Unit of the Office of the CTO. This role combines deep, hands‑on expertise in full‑stack AI factory design with leadership of a high‑performing technical pre‑sales team. The Sr Director owns the architecture and deal‑shaping of multi‑million‑dollar AI infrastructure opportunities spanning GPU compute, high‑performance networking, scale‑out storage, and the surrounding software stack, and is directly accountable for the operation of Trace3's AI Labs.

• Build, hire, coach, and retain a team of presales solutions architects covering AI infrastructure and HPC, orchestration and observability, and AI‑specific cybersecurity.
• Own team capacity planning, deal support coverage, and utilization targets against pipeline volume and velocity.
• Establish role definitions, technical career paths, certification roadmaps, and performance standards aligned with broader OCTO presales norms.
• Partner with Data & Analytics, Security Solutions, Digital, and Innovation teams to present a single technical front to customers on AI opportunities.

• Serve as the primary technical architect for Trace3's largest and most complex AI infrastructure opportunities, including greenfield AI factory builds, training and inference cluster designs, and edge AI deployments.
• Architect end‑to‑end designs covering GPU compute, CPU head nodes, scale‑out and parallel storage, east‑west and north‑south networking, power, cooling, and facility integration.
• Define reference architectures, bill‑of‑material templates, and repeatable deal patterns that accelerate presales velocity and improve design quality.
• Lead architectural validation, risk assessment, and commercial shaping for strategic pursuits.

• Own the technical roadmap, funding case, and day‑to‑day operation of Trace3's AI Labs environments.
• Define benchmarking methodologies, customer demo experiences, proof‑of‑concept frameworks, and vendor integration projects run through the Labs.
• Curate a rotating hardware estate across priority OEM platforms including NVIDIA DGX and HGX, Cisco AI infrastructure, Dell Power Edge XE, Super Micro, Lenovo Think System, and HPE Pro Liant Compute DL and Cray.
• Partner with marketing, field enablement, and OEM alliance teams to monetize Labs access through customer workshops, executive briefings, and OEM co‑sell motions.

• Serve as the senior Trace3 technical point of contact for NVIDIA (including NVIDIA AI Enterprise, NCP, and Partner Program activities), Cisco, Dell Technologies, Super Micro, Lenovo, and HPE.
• Align Trace3's AI Platforms portfolio with OEM roadmaps, partner programs, and incentive structures.
• Engage vendor engineering, product management, and field alliance teams to influence product direction and secure early access for priority customers.
• Build strategic relationships with adjacent vendors in storage (VAST, WEKA, DDN, Pure, Net App), networking fabrics, orchestration (Run:ai, Anyscale, Kubernetes ecosystem), observability, and AI security.

• Lead complex technical discovery sessions, solutioning workshops, and executive briefings for strategic accounts across regions and verticals.
• Own deep technical validation, sizing, and configuration across AI training, fine‑tuning, inference, and RAG workloads.
• Review and approve major proposals and statements of work for technical soundness, deliverability, and commercial risk.
• Represent Trace3 at OEM events, industry conferences, and customer advisory boards.

• Shape Trace3's public point of view on AI factory design, AI readiness, and infrastructure modernization through whitepapers, reference designs, podcasts, and speaking engagements.
• Track AI infrastructure trends including emerging accelerators, disaggregated memory, liquid and rear‑door cooling, rack‑scale designs, and sovereign AI.
• Contribute to Trace3's broader AI Strategy and services planning by…