Solutions Designer

Cisco · Toronto, Ontario · hybrid Cisco is seeking a Solutions Designer based in the Toronto area to work with public sector customers in the city and around the province of Ontario. As a Solutions Designer, you will combine technical expertise, consultative engagement, and business acumen to help customers address complex operational and technology challenges. Responsibilities Strategic Consultative Partnership: Act as a trusted technical advisor to Canadian public sector customers, applying architecture, delivery, and implementation expertise to align solutions with their mission, business, and operational objectives. Technical Sales Leadership: Partner with Account Executives and cross-functional teams throughout the pre-sales cycle. Discovery and Solution Alignment: Lead comprehensive discovery sessions to uncover mission-critical challenges, technical requirements, constraints, and desired outcomes. Strategic Roadmap Development: Collaborate across Cisco, customer, and partner teams to develop, document, and present clear technology roadmaps. Technology Leadership and Advocacy: Maintain current knowledge of Cisco technologies, industry trends, and emerging capabilities. Complex Problem-Solving: Draw on Cisco's broad portfolio and partner ecosystem to architect secure, resilient, scalable, and operationally practical solutions. Customer Influence and Business Value: Translate complex technical considerations into clear recommendations, architectural trade-offs, and business value. Minimum Qualifications Minimum of 5+ years of professional experience in systems architecture, solution design, systems engineering, technical consulting, delivery, or implementation within enterprise environments. Completion of at least 3 large-scale, end-to-end solution architectures, implementations, or delivery leadership projects within enterprise, critical infrastructure, public sector, or regulated environments. Documented technical competency in at least two of the following domains: networking, security, data centre, collaboration, or observability. Experience delivering a minimum of 5 technical presentations or architecture reviews to audiences including technical teams, business stakeholders, and executive leadership. Experience producing written technical documentation, including customer requirements analyses, solution architecture diagrams, and actionable implementation roadmaps. A bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline, or a minimum of 14 years of combined education, formal certifications, technical training, and practical work experience. Current residency in the Toronto area, and availability to fulfill hybrid office, customer-site, and travel requirements. Preferred Qualifications Minimum of 5+ years of professional experience providing technical services, solution architecture, or sales engineering for Canadian Public Sector accounts. Possession of at least one active industry-recognized certification, such as Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE), Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP), or Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). Minimum of 3 years of hands-on configuration or architecture experience utilizing Cisco enterprise networking, security, or data centre portfolios. Completion of at least 1 project involving the design or implementation of AI infrastructure, AI workloads, or solutions across secure on-premises, hybrid, or cloud-connected environments. Minimum of 2 years of direct pre-sales or technical advocacy experience resulting in approved technical architectures or technology adoption strategies. Experience authoring at least 2 formal technology roadmaps or strategic architectural decision documents submitted to senior organizational stakeholders. Verified bilingual proficiency in English and French (reading, writing, and speaking).