Senior Solutions Architect (VMware & AI Platform)

About Rackspace Technology

Rackspace Technology™ is a premier hybrid cloud and AI solutions provider, offering end-to-end design, build, and operational services for customer cloud and AI environments across diverse technology platforms and deployment models. We partner with clients through each phase of their cloud and AI journeys, facilitating application modernization, AI adoption, innovation, and business transformation. Recognized by Glassdoor, Newsweek, and Forbes as a top workplace, we attract and nurture top-tier talent dedicated to delivering our Fanatical Experience™ and helping customers anticipate future needs.

Role Overview

We seek an experienced Senior Solutions Architect specializing in VMware technologies, infrastructure modernization, and AI platform enablement to support strategic presales opportunities across the Middle East. You will collaborate closely with Sales, Solutions, and Delivery teams to craft advanced solutions addressing datacenter modernization, virtualization, hybrid cloud, disaster recovery, business continuity, and platform transformation, extending into enterprise AI platforms. Responsibilities include architecting GPU-as-a-Service (GPUaaS), model inference, and fine-tuning capabilities that operate atop hypervisors, orchestrated via Kubernetes and integrated with VMware, while ensuring robust guardrails, resilience, and security.

Key Responsibilities

• Build trusted relationships with client executives and technical stakeholders to provide business and technical advisory support.
• Drive customer workshops focusing on VMware technologies, private cloud adoption, datacenter modernization, hybrid cloud architectures, AI platform strategies, and platform transformations.
• Design and advocate solutions utilizing VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), vSphere, NSX, VMware Aria Suite, Tanzu, and related technologies.
• Architect AI platform solutions incorporating GPUaaS, model serving/inference, and fine-tuning workloads running above the hypervisor layer, exemplified by VMware Private AI Foundation with NVIDIA on VCF, NVIDIA vGPU/MIG partitioning, and AMD Instinct accelerators, orchestrated via Kubernetes (VMware Tanzu/TKG).
• Develop AI serving and training stacks including inference servers and MLOps tools such as NVIDIA Triton, KServe, Ray, and Kubeflow, enabling GPU scheduling, multi-tenancy, model registries, and CI/CD pipelines.
• Incorporate AI guardrails and governance embedding policy enforcement, content and prompt filtering, personal data protection, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) safety measures, and adhere to responsible AI and regulatory standards including ISO/IEC 42001, the EU AI Act, and NCSC guidance tailored for regulated and sovereign clients.
• Design resilient full-stack solutions featuring high availability, fault tolerance, backup and disaster recovery, GPU node-pool failover, training checkpointing, and sustained operations for stateful inference and data services.
• Ensure security and tenant isolation via network micro-segmentation (NSX), confidential computing, encryption of models and data in transit and at rest, secure supply chains for models and containers, secrets management, and access controls.
• Assess customer needs to craft solution architectures fulfilling current and future goals for traditional infrastructure and AI workloads.
• Lead complex presales engagements coordinating with Subject Matter Experts, Product Management, Sales, and Delivery teams.
• Create comprehensive proposals, RFI/RFP responses, bids, and Statements of Work detailing customer requirements, technical designs, project scopes, and delivery efforts.
• Provide expert guidance on VMware platforms, AI infrastructure, migration strategies, infrastructure transformation, and hybrid cloud adoption.
• Detect buying signals, critical events, key stakeholders, and obstacles to sales success.
• Address technical and commercial objections proactively to minimize customer risks and enhance confidence in Rackspace solutions.
• Advise on infrastructure and AI platform operations, governance, cloud strategy, and transformation roadmaps.
• Estimate resources, project efforts, and delivery methodologies employing Agile, Waterfall, or hybrid models.
• Maintain up-to-date information in Salesforce on pipeline, opportunities, and customer interactions.
• Contribute to organizational growth through mentoring, knowledge transfer, and technical leadership.
• Continuously update expertise in VMware and AI platform technologies, staying informed on industry innovations and trends.

Required Qualifications & Experience

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Business, or related fields; alternatively, over 10 years of relevant experience in technical presales, consulting, or solution architecture.
• Extensive experience designing enterprise infrastructure and VMware-centered solutions.
• Deep understanding of datacenter and infrastructure modernization, including virtualization, workload migration, consolidation, private and hybrid cloud adoption.
• Proficiency with VMware technologies such as VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF), vSphere, vCenter, NSX, VMware Aria Operations and Automation, and VMware Tanzu.
• Practical knowledge of AI platform architectures running above hypervisors, including GPUaaS provisioning, multi-tenancy, virtualization (NVIDIA vGPU/MIG, passthrough), and accelerators from NVIDIA and AMD Instinct.
• Familiarity with model serving, inference optimization, fine-tuning and training workflows, and MLOps tooling including Triton, KServe, Ray, and Kubeflow.
• Strong expertise in Kubernetes and container orchestration platforms, particularly VMware Tanzu / TKG, for GPU-accelerated AI workloads.
• Understanding of AI governance frameworks encompassing policy enforcement, content safety, data protection, compliance with ISO/IEC 42001, the EU AI Act, and NCSC directives.
• Comprehensive knowledge of enterprise infrastructure architectures encompassing compute, storage, networking, and security domains.
• Experience designing highly available, scalable, resilient, and secure virtualized and AI platforms.
• Knowledge of disaster recovery, backup systems, business continuity planning, and resilience patterns relevant to GPU and stateful AI workloads.
• Expertise in platform security and tenant isolation strategies including network segmentation, confidential computing, encryption, secure supply chains, and identity and access management.
• Familiarity with infrastructure automation and orchestration tools such as Terraform, Ansible, and Aria Automation.
• Track record of resolving complex challenges in enterprise VMware, virtualization, hybrid cloud, or AI platform contexts.
• Strong commercial insight and capability to manage complex customer sales processes.
• Advanced awareness of trends in virtualization, private/hybrid cloud, AI infrastructure, and datacenter transformation.
• Experience utilizing presales and solutioning tools like Salesforce and proposal/project scoping frameworks.
• Exceptional communication, presentation, analytical reasoning, problem-solving, organizational, and multitasking abilities.

Success Criteria

• Recognized as the VMware, Infrastructure Modernisation, and AI Platform authority within the company.
• Deliver successful solutions for complex enterprise clients across traditional infrastructure and AI initiatives.
• Create AI platforms that prioritize trust, resilience, and security, enabling clients to confidently adopt GPUaaS, inference, and fine-tuning, especially in regulated and sovereign settings.
• Influence strategic technology and transformation endeavors.
• Assist clients in modernizing infrastructure and adopting AI to accelerate cloud and digital transformations.
• Support sustainable revenue growth via thought leadership, innovation, and trusted client advisement.

Location and Language Requirements

On-site position based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Fluency in both Arabic and English is required.