Director, Platform Architecture

Zendesk • Austin, TX

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Zendesk is seeking a technically credible leader to build and lead its global contact center center of excellence solutions architecture team, focused on customer experience, cloud contact centres, and AI. This hands-on management role involves developing a globally distributed team, shaping technical strategy, and engaging directly with enterprise customers, senior executives, and the wider industry. The Director will help customers address complex contact-centre challenges and coordinate teams across Zendesk and its partner ecosystem to deliver practical, trusted solutions.

The role guides architecture across AWS, Amazon Connect, Zendesk, enterprise systems, and AI services, with practical standards for security, reliability, integration, and maintainability. It also contributes directly to key customer opportunities, technical decisions, prototypes, demonstrations, and proofs of concept. The Director leads customer discovery and solution design, represents the team in executive and industry settings, develops strategic partner relationships, and works cross-functionally to align customer needs, product feedback, solution scope, and implementation readiness.

The position is hybrid, with flexibility to work remotely for part of the week and opportunities to come together at Zendesk offices. The US annualized OTE range is $317,000–$475,000, with a 70/30 base/commission pay mix. The role may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. The offer depends on job-related capabilities, applicable experience, work location, and other factors.

Requirements

• 10+ years of experience in solutions architecture, technical presales, sales engineering, or enterprise technical consulting.
• 5+ years of experience managing and developing technical, customer-facing professionals.
• 5+ years of experience in contact-centre technologies, including Amazon Connect, CCaaS platforms, or contact-centre integrations.
• Demonstrated hands-on experience with AWS and Amazon Connect.
• Experience designing enterprise contact-centre solutions and integrations across CRM, telephony, workforce management, APIs, and cloud services.
• Experience leading complex customer engagements and presenting technical recommendations to senior or C-level audiences.
• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent practical experience.
• Substantial contact-centre or CCaaS knowledge, including contact-centre operations, customer-service workflows, and cloud contact-centre architecture.
• Experience in enterprise solutions architecture, technical presales, or a comparable customer-facing technical leadership role.
• Ability to guide complex integrations and architectures across cloud services, APIs, and enterprise platforms.
• Executive presence and ability to build trust with C-level stakeholders, customers, partners, analysts, and technical teams.
• Hands-on leadership style, strong communication, and commercial judgment, including the ability to make sound decisions across teams and through ambiguity.

Nice To Haves

• Experience leading globally distributed teams across regions and time zones.
• AWS Solutions Architect certification, Amazon Connect certification, or relevant Amazon Connect training or badges.
• Experience migrating legacy contact-centre platforms to the cloud and designing voice and omnichannel workflows.
• Familiarity with integration technologies such as SIP, WebRTC, APIs, and event-driven architecture.
• Experience with contact-centre AI, automation, analytics, or workforce-management capabilities.
• Coding or scripting experience for prototypes and technical validation.
• Experience speaking at industry events, briefing analysts, or representing a technical organisation publicly.

Responsibilities

• Manage, coach, and develop a globally distributed team of solutions architects; set expectations, support career growth, build leadership capability, and plan hiring, workload, and regional coverage.
• Guide solution architecture across AWS, Amazon Connect, Zendesk, enterprise systems, and AI services, setting standards for security, reliability, integration, and maintainability.
• Contribute directly to important customer opportunities, complex technical decisions, prototypes, demonstrations, and proofs of concept.
• Lead technical discovery and solution design with customer executives, business leaders, and technical teams; clearly explain architecture, trade-offs, risks, and business value.
• Represent the contact-centre team in executive meetings, customer engagements, industry events, and briefings with industry analysts.
• Collaborate with Sales, Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Services, Partner, and Marketing teams to align customer needs, solution scope, product feedback, and implementation readiness.
• Develop technical and leadership relationships with AWS and other strategic partners, and coordinate joint priorities and customer engagements.
• Prioritise work according to customer and business needs, create reusable architectures and demonstrations, and share field insights and resource needs with senior leadership.

Benefits

• The position may be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives.
• Zendesk describes a hybrid way of working that allows remote work for part of the week.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Director