Remote opportunity at
solo.ioDir, Solutions Engineering
Solo.io is seeking a Director, Solutions Engineering to lead a team of technical professionals across the Central and West regions. In this player-coach position, the successful…
Career Tools
About This Role
Solo.io is seeking a Director, Solutions Engineering to lead a team of technical professionals across the Central and West regions. In this player-coach position, the successful candidate will secure technical wins by partnering with regional sales leadership to convert open source adopters of Istio, kgateway, agentgateway, and kagent into enterprise clients. Solo.io focuses on cloud and AI infrastructure, providing connectivity solutions for major global enterprises. This role involves building repeatable…
Job Description
Solo.io is seeking a Director, Solutions Engineering to lead a team of technical professionals across the Central and West regions. In this player-coach position, the successful candidate will secure technical wins by partnering with regional sales leadership to convert open source adopters of Istio, kgateway, agentgateway, and kagent into enterprise clients. Solo.io focuses on cloud and AI infrastructure, providing connectivity solutions for major global enterprises. This role involves building repeatable processes, establishing discovery frameworks, leading architecture sessions and proof-of-concept evaluations for complex opportunities, and acting as a technical executive sponsor. Candidates must reside in the Central or West United States and possess a willingness to travel to regional customers and events. The position is remote and operates on a full-time schedule.
Responsibilities
- Manage and mentor a team of Solutions Engineers in the Central and West regions.
- Act as a technical executive sponsor on major regional deals, leading design reviews and architecture sessions.
- Establish clear proof-of-concept success criteria and determine which deals to pursue.
- Collaborate with regional sales leadership on account strategies, forecasts, and coverage.
- Develop repeatable frameworks, reference architectures, demo environments, and playbooks.
- Position the company against open-source DIY, hyperscalers, and competing vendors.
- Deliver structured customer and competitive feedback to engineering, product, and marketing departments.
- Represent the company at industry events, workshops, meetups, and through technical content.
Requirements
- Minimum of 8 years of technical pre-sales experience in infrastructure software.
- At least 3 years of direct experience managing Solutions Engineers.
- Demonstrated track record of hiring, developing talent, and increasing technical win rates.
- Deep technical expertise in Kubernetes, service mesh like Istio, API gateways like Envoy, L4/L7 networking, zero-trust security, and mTLS.
- Experience selling complex multi-stakeholder deals to enterprise infrastructure, platform engineering, and security buyers.
- Background in open-source or open-core sales motions.
- Fluency in formal sales methodologies such as MEDDPICC or Command of the Message.
- Strong communication and presentation skills tailored for both engineers and executives.
- Location within the Central or West US with regional travel availability.
Qualifications
- Experience with Gateway API, Cilium, eBPF, or alternative service mesh and API gateway products.
- Working knowledge of AI and LLM workloads, model gateways, agent access governance, or agent infrastructure.
- Background at an open-core or CNCF-ecosystem infrastructure company.
- Experience operating in regulated industries including telecommunications, healthcare, or financial services.
- Bachelor degree in Computer Science or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.
Core Skills
Frequently Asked Questions
Answers are based only on the employer’s listing; where it doesn’t say, neither do we.
Is this position remote?
Yes, the posting specifies that the role is remote, though candidates must reside in the Central or West US and be willing to travel to customers and events within the region.
What is the employment type?
The role is full-time.
What salary does this position offer?
The posting does not specify a salary.
What experience is required for this role?
Candidates need over 8 years of technical pre-sales experience in infrastructure software, including at least 3 years of direct management experience overseeing Solutions Engineers.
Sample Interview Questions
AI-generated questions tailored to this specific role — a preview of the full practice set.