Director, Platform Architecture

Job DescriptionDirector, Contact Center Platform ArchitectureAt Zendesk, we’re on a mission to power exceptional service for every person on the planet. We’re looking for a technically credible leader to build and lead our global contact center, center of excellence solutions architecture team focused on customer experience, cloud contact centres, and AI.This is a hands-on management role. You’ll grow a globally distributed team while shaping technical strategy and engaging directly with enterprise customers, senior executives, and the wider industry. You’ll help customers solve complex contact-centre challenges and bring teams across Zendesk and our partner ecosystem together to deliver practical, trusted solutions.What you’ll be doingLead and grow a global team: Manage, coach, and develop a distributed team of solutions architects. Set clear expectations, support career growth, build leadership capability, and plan hiring, workload, and regional coverage.Set technical direction: Guide architecture for solutions spanning AWS, Amazon Connect, Zendesk, enterprise systems, and AI services. Set practical standards for security, reliability, integration, and maintainability.Stay hands-on: Engage directly in important customer opportunities, complex technical decisions, prototypes, demonstrations, and proofs of concept. Help the team turn technical designs into credible, supportable solutions.Lead customer engagements: Guide technical discovery and solution design with customer executives, business leaders, and technical teams. Explain architecture, trade-offs, risks, and business value clearly.Represent the team externally: Present and represent the contact-centre team in executive meetings, customer engagements, industry events, and briefings with industry analysts.Collaborate across Zendesk: Work with Sales, Product, Engineering, Customer Success, Services, Partner and Marketing to align customer needs, solution scope, product feedback, and implementation readiness.Build strong partner relationships: Develop technical and leadership relationships with AWS and other strategic partners, and coordinate joint priorities and customer engagements.Improve how the team operates: Prioritise work against customer and business needs, create reusable architectures and demonstrations, and share field insights and resource needs with senior leadership.What you bring to the roleA strong record of leading, coaching, and developing technical teams, ideally across multiple regions and time zones.Deep hands-on experience with AWS and Amazon Connect.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.The technical judgment to guide complex integrations and architectures across cloud services, APIs, and enterprise platforms.Executive presence and the ability to build trust with C-level stakeholders, customers, partners, analysts, and technical teams.A practical, hands-on leadership style: able to set direction, develop others, and personally contribute to critical customer and technical work.Strong communication and commercial judgment, with the ability to make sound decisions across teams and through ambiguity.Basic Qualifications10+ 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 AWS and Amazon Connect experience.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.Preferred QualificationsExperience 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.The intelligent heart of customer experienceZendesk 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.The US annualized OTE (On Target Earnings) range for this position is $317,000.00-$475,000.00 with a pay mix of 70/30 (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 experienceZendesk 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 View email address on click.appcast.io with your specific accommodation request.SummaryLocation: Austin, Texas, United States of America; Remote, Nevada, United States of America; Remote, Washington, United States of America; Remote, California, United States of America; Remote, Texas, United States of America; Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America; San Francisco, California, United States of America; Remote, Pennsylvania, United States of America; Remote, New York, United States of AmericaType: Full time