Senior Solutions Architect

Job Description

About Us:

We are an innovative and fast-moving business focused on helping companies build better relationships with their customers. We take pride in the impact our work has on organizations, while also caring deeply about the experience of our employees and the culture we build together.

Zendesk helps companies improve customer engagement through powerful, scalable, and easy-to-use software solutions. Our products enable organizations to move faster, operate more efficiently, and deliver better customer experiences across every touchpoint.

We are looking for a Senior Solutions Architect to help expand our Services business in North America. This role will lead strategic scoping conversations with customers and prospects, covering technical architecture, solution design, implementation strategy, AI-enabled workflows, automation opportunities, and competitive differentiation throughout the sales cycle.

Job Overview:

The ideal candidate is an experienced technical leader who can operate both as an individual contributor and as a mentor across teams. This person will own technical scoping, guide complex customer conversations, and partner closely with Sales, Services, Product, and Customer Success teams to design the right solution for each customer.

The Senior Solutions Architect will act as the technical bridge between Account Executives and prospective customers, owning the primary technical relationship during the sales and services process. This role requires the ability to engage with C-level executives, directors, technical stakeholders, and implementation teams to communicate the value, feasibility, and business impact of the proposed solution.

In addition to strong enterprise software and customer experience knowledge, the role now requires hands-on experience with AI technologies, including AI-assisted workflows, automation, agents, skills, prompt design, integrations, and practical use of AI tools to improve productivity, solution design, customer support, and implementation outcomes.

Key Responsibilities:

• Lead technical discovery and solution scoping conversations with Corporate, Mid-Market, and Enterprise customers.

• Partner with Sales to define technical strategies that support AMER pipeline growth and services revenue targets.

• Own the technical relationship with prospects and customers during the sales cycle, from initial discovery through proposal and closure.

• Design scalable customer experience, support, ITSM, automation, data, and AI-enabled solutions aligned with customer requirements.

• Identify opportunities to incorporate AI, automation, agents, workflows, and knowledge-based systems into customer solutions.

• Support Solutions Architects in key customer meetings, technical workshops, executive presentations, and strategic opportunities.

• Drive best practices within the AMER Solutions Architecture team and apply global standards to regional execution.

• Create a regular business rhythm with AMER Sales counterparts to ensure service propositions are included in relevant sales proposals.

• Help define and execute the regional partnership strategy, including technology partners, implementation partners, and AI ecosystem partners.

• Ensure all scopes are aligned with company methodology, delivery standards, technical feasibility, and customer success outcomes.

• Lead, mentor, attract, and retain high-performing presales and solutions talent.

• Create services sales strategies aligned with the Sales organization.

• Provide weekly reporting on AMER pipeline, deal progression, technical risks, services opportunities, and action plans to achieve targets.

• Translate business requirements into technical solutions, architecture recommendations, implementation plans, and measurable business outcomes.

• Support customer pilots, Proofs of Concept, demos, solution prototypes, and AI-enabled workflow demonstrations.

• Stay current on emerging AI technologies, agentic workflows, automation tools, API-driven architectures, and customer experience innovation.

Required Qualifications:

• Experience selling, scoping, or supporting Mid-Market and Enterprise software solutions.

• Strong background in pre-sales, solutions architecture, consulting, implementation, technical strategy, or customer-facing technical roles.

• Excellent interpersonal, communication, persuasion, presentation, and writing skills.

• Proven ability to communicate technical value to C-level executives, directors, business stakeholders, and technical teams.

• Experience scoping, managing, and executing customer pilots, Proofs of Concept, technical workshops, and solution demos.

• Strong problem-solving skills, including the ability to translate business needs into practical technical solutions.

• Advanced solution scoping capabilities, including the ability to use existing product capabilities while influencing future product development.

• Previous consulting experience implementing enterprise-class software solutions.

• In-depth knowledge of customer service software, ITSM, CRM, data warehousing, business intelligence, integrations, APIs, and customer experience platforms.

• 2+ years of experience managing, mentoring, or leading a presales, solutions consulting, or similar technical team.

• Bachelor’s degree or equivalent experience required; graduate degree is a plus.

• Ability to work in a fast-paced environment with multiple priorities and stakeholders.

• Willingness to travel when required for strategic customer engagements.

• Strong ownership mindset, executive presence, curiosity, and passion for helping customers succeed.

• AI, Automation, Skills, and Agents Experience

The candidate must have practical experience using AI tools in a professional environment and should be comfortable identifying where AI can improve customer workflows, operational efficiency, support experiences, and business outcomes.

Expected Experience Includes:

• Hands-on use of AI tools for research, documentation, solution design, customer analysis, workflow automation, and productivity.

• Understanding of generative AI concepts, including prompt engineering, context management, retrieval-augmented workflows, AI assistants, and agent-based systems.

• Ability to evaluate business use cases and determine where AI is appropriate, valuable, safe, and technically feasible.

• Experience creating, configuring, or using AI-powered agents to perform structured tasks, automate workflows, assist users, or support business processes.

• Knowledge of how to design and use reusable AI skills, playbooks, or task-specific capabilities that improve consistency and execution quality.

• Familiarity with integrating AI tools into enterprise environments, including APIs, knowledge bases, support platforms, workflow tools, and internal systems.

• Ability to explain AI opportunities and limitations clearly to both technical and non-technical stakeholders.

• Awareness of AI governance considerations, including data privacy, security, hallucination risk, access control, human-in-the-loop review, and responsible AI usage.

• Expected Technical Proficiency Levels

• Terminal and Command-Line Usage

Expected level: Intermediate

The candidate should be comfortable using a terminal or command-line interface for day-to-day technical tasks.

Expected Capabilities:

• Navigate file systems and manage files using basic terminal commands.

• Run scripts, inspect logs, execute commands, and troubleshoot common errors.

• Use command-line tools to test APIs, validate integrations, and support technical discovery.

• Understand environment variables, basic shell usage, package installation, and script execution.

• Collaborate with technical teams using CLI-based workflows when needed.

Preferred level: Advanced

• Ability to write or modify basic scripts.

• Experience using tools such as curl, package managers, Git, API clients, and cloud or platform CLIs.

• Comfort debugging integration issues, authentication problems, API responses, and configuration errors.

• AI Skills Creation and Usage

Expected level: Intermediate to Advanced

The candidate should understand how AI skills or reusable capabilities can be designed, documented, and applied to repeatable business tasks.

Expected capabilities:

• Use AI skills to standardize repetitive work such as discovery summaries, proposal drafts, solution scoping, implementation checklists, and customer follow-ups.

• Define clear instructions, inputs, outputs, constraints, and quality expectations for AI-powered skills.

• Evaluate when a skill should be reused, improved, or replaced by a more advanced automation or agent.

• Create structured prompts, templates, and workflows that improve consistency across teams.

• Understand how skills can support presales, services, customer support, knowledge management, and internal operations.

Preferred level: Advanced

• Experience designing custom AI skills for specific business processes.

• Ability to test, iterate, and improve AI skills based on user feedback and output quality.

• Understanding of how skills interact with knowledge sources, APIs, tools, and human review processes.

• AI Agents and Agentic Workflows

Expected level: Intermediate

The candidate should understand how AI agents work and how they can be applied to real business scenarios.

Expected Capabilities:

• Understand the difference between simple AI prompts, automated workflows, and autonomous or semi-autonomous agents.

• Identify use cases where agents can assist with customer service, ticket triage, knowledge retrieval, workflow execution, reporting, or internal productivity.

• Design high-level agent workflows with clear goals, permissions, data sources, escalation paths, and success criteria.

• Explain agent behavior, limitations, risks, and governance needs to stakeholders.

• Work with technical teams to scope agent-based solutions and define implementation requirements.

Preferred level: Advanced

• Hands-on experience configuring, testing, or deploying AI agents.

• Familiarity with agent orchestration, tool use, API actions, memory/context handling, knowledge retrieval, and human approval flows.

• Ability to evaluate agent performance and recommend improvements.

• APIs, Integrations, and Automation

Expected level: Intermediate to Advanced

The candidate should be able to participate in technical conversations involving integrations, APIs, automation, and enterprise architecture.

Expected Capabilities:

• Understand REST APIs, authentication methods, webhooks, data flows, and integration patterns.

• Scope integrations between customer experience platforms, CRM systems, ITSM tools, BI platforms, data warehouses, and AI tools.

• Translate business requirements into integration requirements and technical assumptions.

• Identify risks related to data quality, permissions, latency, scalability, security, and implementation complexity.

• Collaborate effectively with developers, implementation consultants, and enterprise architects.

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience with Zendesk or similar customer experience, CRM, support, or ITSM platforms.

• Experience in AMER markets and ability to work across diverse cultures, languages, and business practices.

• Experience with AI-enabled customer service, chatbots, virtual agents, workflow automation, or knowledge management solutions.

• Familiarity with enterprise AI platforms, automation tools, APIs, and cloud-based architectures.

• Experience building technical demos, prototypes, or proof-of-concept environments.

• Ability to influence product direction based on customer needs and market trends.

• Strong business acumen and ability to connect technical recommendations to revenue, efficiency, customer satisfaction, and operational impact.

• Bilingual or multilingual communication skills are a plus, especially English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Success in This Role Looks Like:

• Customers trust the Senior Solutions Architect as a strategic technical advisor.

• Sales teams consistently involve the role early in complex opportunities.

• AMER services pipeline grows with well-scoped, high-quality opportunities.

• AI, automation, and agent-based opportunities are identified and positioned effectively.

• Solutions are technically sound, commercially aligned, and delivery-ready.

• The Solutions Architecture team adopts stronger best practices, reusable assets, and consistent technical standards.

• The candidate helps elevate the organization’s ability to sell, scope, and deliver modern AI-enabled customer experience solutions.

Equal Opportunity Statement

We are an equal opportunity employer and are committed to building a diverse and inclusive workplace. All qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, physical or mental disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

#LI-LM5

The US annualized OTE (On Target Earnings) range for this position is $206,000.00-$308,000.00 with a pay mix of 80/20 (base/commission). This position may also be eligible for bonus, benefits, or related incentives. While this range reflects the minimum and maximum value for new hire salaries for the position across all US locations, the offer for the successful candidate for this position will be based on job related capabilities, applicable experience, and other factors such as work location. Please note that the compensation details listed in US role postings reflect the base salary only (or OTE for commissions based roles), and do not include bonus, benefits, or related incentives.

The intelligent heart of customer experience

Zendesk software was built to bring a sense of calm to the chaotic world of customer service. Today we power billions of conversations with brands you know and love.

Zendesk believes in offering our people a fulfilling and inclusive experience. Our hybrid way of working, enables us to purposefully come together in person, at one of our many Zendesk offices around the world, to connect, collaborate and learn whilst also giving our people the flexibility to work remotely for part of the week.

As part of our commitment to fairness and transparency, we inform all applicants that artificial intelligence (AI) or automated decision systems may be used to screen or evaluate applications for this position, in accordance with Company guidelines and applicable law.

Zendesk is an equal opportunity employer, and we’re proud of our ongoing efforts to foster global diversity, equity, & inclusion in the workplace. Individuals seeking employment and employees at Zendesk are considered without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, marital status, medical condition, ancestry, disability, military or veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We are an AA/EEO/Veterans/Disabled employer. If you are based in the United States and would like more information about your EEO rights under the law, please click here.

Zendesk endeavors to make reasonable accommodations for applicants with disabilities and disabled veterans pursuant to applicable federal and state law. If you are an individual with a disability and require a reasonable accommodation to submit this application, complete any pre-employment testing, or otherwise participate in the employee selection process, please send an e-mail to [email protected] with your specific accommodation request.