Director - Solutions Engineering - AI Lab
$200,000 - $300,000/year
Role Details
About Us
Since 1989, SHI International Corp. has helped organizations change the world through technology. We’ve grown every year since, and today we’re proud to be a $16 billion global provider of IT solutions and services.
Over 17,000 organizations worldwide rely on SHI’s concierge approach to help them solve what’s next. But the heartbeat of SHI is our employees – all 7,000 of them. If you join our team, you’ll enjoy:
- Our commitment to diversity, as the largest minority- and woman-owned enterprise in the U.S.
- Continuous professional growth and leadership opportunities.
- Health, wellness, and financial benefits to offer peace of mind to you and your family.
- World-class facilities and the technology you need to thrive – in our offices or yours.
Job Summary
The Director of the SHI Advanced Growth Technologies (AGT) AI Lab and Data Center Facility (DCF) will lead end-to-end AI innovation across infrastructure, platform engineering, and solution development. This role owns the vision, strategy, and execution of a cutting-edge AI lab environment—spanning physical and virtual design, hardware and software platforms, and full-stack AI solutions.
This is a senior leadership role for a deeply technical, forward-thinking expert who combines hands-on engineering mastery with strategic leadership. The Director will enable customers, partners, and internal teams to prototype, validate, and scale transformative AI solutions while shaping the future of enterprise AI at SHI.
As Director of the AI Lab, you will provide full-stack leadership across AI infrastructure, data center technologies, and advanced solution engineering. You will oversee multidisciplinary teams and ensure seamless integration across compute, networking, storage, orchestration, and AI frameworks.
Role Description
- Own and drive the design, deployment, and ongoing optimization of AI lab infrastructure, including physical facilities and virtual environments.
- Lead full-stack solution engineering efforts integrating compute, networking, storage, Kubernetes, and secure orchestration for scalable AI workloads.
- Guide teams in developing, training, fine-tuning, and scaling AI models, agentic workflows, and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipelines across major AI frameworks, including NVIDIA technologies.
- Collaborate with internal teams, customers, partners, and OEMs to deliver end-to-end AI solutions from infrastructure through application layers.
- Establish and maintain technical documentation, architectural standards, solution catalogs, and engineering best practices.
- Oversee observability, lifecycle management, licensing, entitlement planning, and optimization of lab assets across multiple vendors.
- Mentor and develop engineers, researchers, and developers, fostering a culture of innovation, technical rigor, and continuous improvement.
- Lead customer, partner, and OEM engagements, including demos, workshops, events, and executive briefings that showcase AI lab capabilities.
- Engage with open-source communities, industry forums, and emerging AI ecosystems to stay ahead of technology trends.
- Design, validate, and deploy AI solutions for both internal stakeholders and external customers.
Behaviors and Competencies
- Leadership: Can lead strategic team initiatives, inspire others to take leadership roles, and foster a culture of shared responsibility and continuous improvement.
- Strategic Thinking: Can analyze complex situations, drive organizational transformation, and adapt strategies to changing market conditions.
- Business Acumen: Can provide strategic guidance and insights to drive overall business success.
- Communication: Can lead and model exceptional communication at all levels of the organization, develop and implement communication strategies, and coach others to improve their communication skills.
- Change Management: Can lead and model exceptional change management at all levels of the organization, can develop and implement change management strategies, and can coach others to improve their change management skills.
- Collaboration: Can lead complex team projects, inspire others to collaborate effectively, and foster a culture of mutual respect and shared purpose.
- Technical Expertise: Can create new applications for technical knowledge and skills and can lead the development of technical standards and procedures.
- Problem-Solving: Can lead strategic problem-solving initiatives, inspire others to improve their problem-solving skills, and foster a culture of proactive problem-solving.
- Results Orientation: Can inspire a culture of results-orientation across the organization, setting high standards and holding everyone accountable for achieving results.
- Strategic Implementation: Can lead the development and execution of comprehensive strategic plans, inspire and guide teams, and drive organizational change to achieve strategic objectives.
- Adaptability: Can drive strategic transformations, inspire others to embrace change, and foster a culture of continuous adaptation.
Skill Level Requirements
- Expert-level knowledge across AI infrastructure and full-stack engineering, including compute architecture, Kubernetes orchestration, networking, storage platforms, and security.
- Deep experience architecting and delivering end-to-end AI solutions, from hardware and infrastructure through model execution and application integration.
- Strong hands-on expertise in AI frameworks and platforms, including NVIDIA technologies and modern AI tooling.
- Proven experience with model training, fine-tuning, inference, agentic systems, RAG pipelines, and large-scale evaluation.
- Ability to translate complex technical concepts into clear guidance for engineers, partners, customers, and executives.
- Demonstrated leadership in building and scaling high-performing technical teams within fast-evolving technology domains.
Other Requirements
- Extensive experience leading AI labs, data center environments, or advanced technology platforms supporting high-performance AI workloads.
- Strong self-directed learning mindset with the ability to stay current in rapidly evolving AI, infrastructure, and platform ecosystems.
- Excellent communication, presentation, organizational, and time management skills.
- Willingness to work flexible schedules, including evenings and weekends as project needs require.
- Ability to travel up to 25% for customer, partner, and industry engagements.
- Advanced certifications, published research, or a strong record of open-source contributions in AI or related fields are a plus.
The estimated annual pay range for this position is $200,000 - $300,000 which includes a base salary and bonus. The compensation for this position is dependent on job-related knowledge, skills, experience, and market location and, therefore, will vary from individual to individual. Benefits may include, but are not limited to, medical, vision, dental, 401K, and flexible spending.
Equal Employment Opportunity – M/F/Disability/Protected Veteran Status
For more details click Job Post.
About SHI International
SHI International is a global IT solutions provider and Value-Added Reseller (VAR) that helps corporate, enterprise, and public sector customers manage, procure, and secure hardware, software, and cloud services.