Data Center Solutions Architect

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Position Summary

The Solutions Architect is a senior technical leader within Daikin Applied's Data Center of Excellence (CoE). This role leads the development of standardized reference architectures and drives technical strategy across the full data-center thermal value chain-from chip to chiller.

The Solutions Architect will have direct customer engagement and work closely with data center owners, developers, hyperscalers, integrators, and Neo-Cloud operators to shape design standards, influence solution selection, and guide purchasing decisions aligned with Daikin Data Center Solutions.

This is a highly visible role that blends engineering depth with commercial impact. This role directly enhances Daikin's competitive position by strengthening market credibility and customer trust with best-in-class technical engagement and increasing design wins through direct customer influence. Reducing technical and commercial risk via validated architectures and PoC testing. Accelerating product innovation through real-world performance insights and solution leadership.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Technical Leader and expert in the Data Center Solutions specialty to develop and govern standardized cooling reference architectures for AI-focused data center deployments.

• Define system-level topology across liquid cooling, air cooling, plant design, and heat rejection strategies.

• Architect integrated solutions that align thermal systems, electrical constraints, controls philosophy, and operational resilience.

• Establish design guardrails, scalability boundaries, and redundancy strategies.

• Support proof-of-concept testing, performance benchmarking, interoperability validation, and technical demonstrations within the Data Center CoE Innovation Lab in San Diego.

• Lead cross-functional architecture reviews across engineering, product, service, and commercial teams.

• Drive techno-economic trade studies balancing performance, reliability, footprint, manufacturability, and cost.

• Define control philosophy and system orchestration standards across plant equipment and distribution systems.

• Incorporate field performance feedback and commissioning lessons into architecture evolution to make improvements to products

• Support customer-facing technical discussions with hyperscale, enterprise, and colocation stakeholders.

• Contribute to long-term product and platform strategy alignment.

• Engage selectively with external stakeholders to position Daikin solutions early in design cycles.

• Strong ability to articulate both system-level architecture and product-level technical detail in executive and customer-facing settings.

• Sales-aware mindset with the ability to influence customer design decisions and guide solution alignment.

• Excellent communication skills, emotional intelligence, and executive presence in customer and partner interactions.

• Highly collaborative and effective in cross-functional environments, aligned with CoE team culture.

• Ability to travel to the San Diego Innovation Lab, customer sites, partner facilities, and internal meetings as required.

Preferred Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Experience contributing to or governing formal reference architectures or system design standards.

• Exposure to AI-focused or high-density computing infrastructure.

• Experience supporting proof-of-concept validation, performance benchmarking, or interoperability testing.

• Familiarity with system modeling, energy analysis, or simulation tools.

• Experience presenting technical strategy to executive stakeholders.

Required Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• BSc Mechanical, electrical, systems, industrial, or automation engineering
• 10+ years' experience

• Technical expert in at least one major data center domain (mechanical systems, thermal cooling, controls, integration, or systems architecture), with the ability to think across domains at the system level.

• Experience in mission-critical infrastructure system design.

• Demonstrated expertise in liquid cooling integration and central plant architectures.

• Strong understanding of redundancy models and high-availability system design.

• Working knowledge of plant control strategies and integrated system operation.

• Demonstrated business acumen with experience evaluating architecture decisions through lifecycle cost, capital efficiency, operational impact, and market positioning.

• Experience conducting or contributing to structured technical and commercial trade studies.

Benefits

Daikin Applied offers the following benefits for this position, subject to applicable eligibility requirements:

• Multiple medical insurance plan options + dental and vision insurance
• 401K retirement plan with employer contributions matching 100% of the first 3% of employee contributions and 50% of the next 2% of employee contributions
• Company provided life insurance + optional employee-paid voluntary life insurance, dependent life coverage, and voluntary accident coverage
• Short-term and long-term disability
• 3 weeks of paid time off for new employees + 11 company-paid holidays
• Vacation accrues on a monthly basis, unless applicable federal, state, and local law requires a faster accrual
• Paid sick time in accordance with the federal, state, and local law
• Paid parental leave and tuition reimbursement after 6 months of continuous service

The typical annual base salary for this position ranges from 146,900K - 246,200K. The range displayed represents the pay range for all positions in the job grade which this position falls. Individual base pay will depend on a wide range of factors including your skills, qualifications, experience, and location.

If you're looking for an engaging career with growth opportunities in a supportive environment, you'll love a career at Daikin Applied!