Solution Architect, Federal in DC
Position Title:
Solution Architect, Federal
Office Location:
US/ HomeBased
Responsibilities:
The Solution Architect’s role is a technical sales position focused on expanding the technical and business relationship and penetration within their assigned major accounts and/or territory. The Solution Architect working in concert with the Account Manager is responsible for driving the adoption of Solutions and solving their customer’s business issues.
Solution Architects uncover customer pain points, gain keen insight into the customer’s business, customer’s business processes and IT infrastructure/architecture and map solutions to those pain points.
Solutions Architects conduct needs assessments prior to each technical product sales presentation, in order to help qualify the opportunity and to focus on the particular prospects requirements.
Solution Architects design solutions independently and through collaboration with other key team members and present that solution of the customer. The Solutions Architect owns all technical aspects of the sales cycle, including the articulation of competitive positioning and differentiation from the competitive landscape.
Solution Architects manage and deliver solution evaluations by gathering customer requirements, performing product installations/implementations, providing basic training, knowledge transfer and demonstrating how the solution meets the stated requirements.
Solutions Architects follow up regularly with the prospective customers and develop independent relationships that are often vital throughout the customer life cycle. Solutions Architects assist the Technical Responses Coordinator as needed with responses to RFP’s and RFI’s.
Solutions Architects function as key pipelines of information for Development, Product Marketing, Consulting and Services, Technical Publications, and Customer Support by providing feedback on potential product enhancements and competitive direction.
Solution Architects take on the role of Product Advocate for a product and participate in regular meetings with the product team and communicate relevant information to the Solutions Architect team.
Other related duties as assigned; may include activities outside of the primary assigned accounts as business needs require. Travel 50-60%.
Skills:
Bachelor’s degree or equivalent in education and/or experience.
Five plus years of software industry experience, preferably with enterprise scale systems. Demonstrated success in creating, scoping and selling solutions. Demonstrated ability to cover multiple concurrent accounts as project and opportunity manager, and represent an integrated multi-product portfolio, both conceptually and in detail.
Disciplined and self-directed with a strong work ethic. Excellent communication, interpersonal and presentation skills. Able to build trust and lead diverse teams to solve customer problems across multiple internal and external constituents. Flexible and adaptable; including willing and able to travel 50-60% or more as needed.
Two to three plus years selling solutions in one or more of markets (such as Software Change Management, Project Portfolio Management, Process Automation), experience with relevant products and technologies strongly preferred (ChangeMan, PVCS, Dimensions, Harvest, Starbase, ClearCase, Clarity, PlanView or other leading competitive solutions); will consider similar market experience in post sales consulting, consulting management and/or strategic account management.
Technical expertise in Windows or UNIX environments, Windows, Unix, AIX and Linux operating systems, a solid understanding of relational databases (Oracle, MS SQL Server, and/or DB2/UDB) and the software development lifecycle.
Additional preferred qualifications:
Two plus years of project management, managing large projects and cross functional project and/or account teams, PPM certification a definite plus.
Two plus years of team-oriented software development experience, including the use of version control tools and configuration management. A working knowledge of software development tools such as Visual Studio and/or Eclipse products are also desired. ITIL or similar certification a definite plus.
Experience with Windows administration. Expertise in multi-vendor product, services and consulting. Comfortable being one of a few experts covering a large business organization.
