Solutions Architect

The Principal Solutions Architect (SA) is expected to be subject matter expert in multiple families of solutions.

The SA is responsible for driving a variety of initiatives and projects, coaches and/or mentors others SAs; and strategically works with sales, partners and customers to uncover and increase emerging business opportunities.

The SA takes a lead role in defining, developing, and supporting solutions and new technologies; prepares the team to be successful through proactive training, sharing knowledge, and communicating best practices.

Responsibilities

Technology Leadership

• • Acquires deep technical depth in their role; Is the “Go To” person for the solution, both technically and strategically; is on the forefront of their solution(s) and the implications for Anacapa offerings.
  • Performs a lead role in executing the “Go-to-Market” for new offerings.
  • Designs technical solutions not only considering the customer’s infrastructure but also the business limitations and opportunities; operates comfortably beyond standard approaches to satisfy the needs of all the stakeholders.
  • Reviews peer’s designs for quality and accuracy.
  • Determines and defines services that complement and/or round out proposed hardware and software engagements, estimates required engineer effort.
  • Operates beyond a ‘self’ focus for the benefit of the team and the practice to better Anacapa technology leadership, execution, and overall relevance to our customers; develops standardized templates of deliverables, including the SoW framework, tools, demo lab and scripts, and services calculation (Calc); provides leadership to equip Anacapa to deliver the solution at a high level of quality.
  • Communicates and trains the team on changes in technologies, procedures, solution implementations and approaches.
  • Develops training materials for team members to use with Anacapa audiences.
  • Promotes a culture of knowledge sharing and collaboration by organizing knowledge bases, contributing regularly, and encouraging team members to contribute.
  • Coaches and mentors team members to improve their technical, consulting, and sales skills.
  • Acts as a resource to SAs and Account Managers for advice and recommendations on technical design issues and product choices.
  • Conducts technical assessment and expertise evaluations during the candidate selection process.
  • Assist managers with new hire SA leads shadow assignments; proactively provides assistance and guidance to new hires to accelerate productivity.

Sales

• Follows up on implemented solutions and identifies new opportunities that complement the work that was completed.
• Advises team members and sales prior to customer calls and/or sales strategy sessions.
• Assists customer in understanding their equipment maintenance contracts, upgrade needs, and renewals; analyses the most cost-effective approach for the customer (e.g. renew the contract or purchase new equipment and contract.)
• Incorporates financing (through manufacturer or third party) as part of the sales proposal and discussion; looks beyond the current infrastructure/problem toward a three to five year roadmap.
• Guides (compares and contrast) customers in their decision making within all tiers of Anacapa (e.g., Cisco vs. McAfee/Juniper) as well as with external competing technologies/solutions (e.g. Dell vs.NetApp/EMC).
• Initiates new event ideas; collaborates with Partners and Sales to design events that can be replicated by other SAs; secures funding to support Anacapa customer events.
• Delivers presentations and conducts sales conversations with confidence and credibility to C-level clients, both in small meeting and large group formats.
• Develops presentation content for the team.
• Delivers presentations and conducts sales conversations with confidence and credibility to C-level clients, both in small meeting and large group formats.
• Develops assessments improvements and demos for SAs to use as sales tools, identifies new ideas for cross-sell opportunities, teaches SAs in Sales on how to use these tools.
• Collaborates with Partners, ISAs, and AEs to drive mapped opportunities; fine tunes strategies and approaches to achieve greater sales results.
• Operates in a regular cadence with multiple partners to educate, plan, and execute on joint strategies in collaboration with multiple stakeholders (ISA, AE, SM, Field Sales); understands partner alignment in geography and leads customer opportunity mapping exercises; coordinates on-site partner visits.
• Shares best practices and effective territory planning approaches with peers to leverage successful approaches across the team.
• Shares best practices and tactics for enhancing profitability and closing deals.
• Acts as subject matter expert for marketing activities (e.g., marketing blog, content, references, videos, etc.); produces marketing-type documents and materials (e.g., data sheet, presentation, demo video) to use throughout the Practice

Sales Support

• Responds to questions about partner registrations, associated registration issues, and customer engagement history.
• Manages competing priorities and sets expectations with sales and other stakeholders through proactive communication, planning, and potential for return on investment.
• Leads the development of Bills of Materials, Statements of Work, RPFs, RFIs, and proposal content for cross-technology solutions with high levels of accuracy and quality.
• Maintains pre-sales pipeline data, develops plans, and takes actions to move opportunities to closure.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree or equivalent experience.
• Seven-year minimum technical pre-sales or technical architecting experience,
• Demonstrated subject matter expertise in specific technology.

Other Requirements

• Stay up to date on products, applications, technical service, market conditions, competitive activities, advertising, and promotional trends through the reading of pertinent literature, seminars, and online training.
• Proven project management skills.
• Proficient in Microsoft office applications.
• Proven success and experience selling technologies solutions and services.
• Knowledge and proven success of engaging and working with sales teams.
• Ability to execute on territory goals and metrics.
• Ability to adapt and change to the business needs of the practice and team coverage model.
• Strong interpersonal and presentation skills, including consulting skills.
• Strong oral and written communication skills.
• Strong passion for learning and teaching others.
• Motivated and self-starting.
• Ability to think creatively and come up with proactive ideas that will increase sales.
• Strong problem solving skills.
• Must be able to communicate effectively and in a constructive manner with management, peers and coworkers