Inside Solutions Architect Manager

Description

The Inside Solutions Architect (ISA) Manager is a presales leader responsible for building, coaching, and directing a high-performing team of Inside Solutions Architects who support customer discovery, solution development, opportunity progression, and sales execution across assigned technology practices and business segments. The primary objective of the ISA Manager is to improve team capability, technical quality, seller experience, win rate, revenue growth, gross margin contribution, and customer outcomes through consistent leadership and operational discipline.

The ISA Manager partners closely with sales, presales, services, operations, vendor, and alliance leaders to align coverage, prioritize opportunities, remove barriers, and ensure customers receive timely, accurate, and business-aligned technical support. This role establishes clear expectations for opportunity ownership, discovery, solution quality, documentation, handoffs, pipeline management, and use of required systems and processes.

The ideal candidate is an experienced presales leader who combines people leadership, business acumen, technical credibility, and data-driven decision-making. They can coach across multiple technical disciplines, communicate effectively with executive stakeholders, and translate organizational goals into practical team priorities, measurable performance, and continuous improvement.

Responsibilities

• The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skills, and abilities required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Inside Solutions Architects supporting assigned technology practices, customer segments, sales teams, and strategic business priorities.
• Establish clear performance expectations, operating rhythms, development plans, and accountability for opportunity support, customer engagement, technical quality, responsiveness, and business results.
• Conduct regular one-on-one meetings, team meetings, performance discussions, career-development conversations, and structured coaching based on observed behaviors, business data, and individual goals.
• Guide the team through consultative discovery, solution design, technical validation, competitive positioning, presentation development, and executive-level customer conversations.
• Serve as a leadership escalation point for complex, strategic, high-risk, or time-sensitive opportunities, coordinating the appropriate ISA, CSA, SA, services, vendor, and partner resources.
• Partner with sales and presales leadership to align team capacity and technical coverage to pipeline priorities, customer needs, strategic accounts, and growth initiatives.
• Drive consistent opportunity ownership, assignment, qualification, documentation, activity tracking, stage progression, and handoff practices across required sales and presales systems.
• Monitor pipeline health, supported opportunity volume, controllable win rate, revenue, gross margin, cycle time, service attachment, customer engagement, and other performance indicators to identify trends and take action.
• Inspect the quality and accuracy of technical recommendations, Bills of Materials, proposals, configurations, quotes, diagrams, licensing, support requirements, and solution documentation.
• Build a culture of discovery, customer focus, collaboration, accountability, continuous learning, constructive feedback, and proactive communication.
• Create and execute team enablement plans that improve technical depth, business acumen, vendor knowledge, presentation skills, discovery capability, solution accuracy, and use of AI and productivity tools.
• Maintain skills matrices, certification plans, succession plans, and role-development pathways that support individual growth and future organizational needs.
• Partner with vendor and alliance teams to coordinate training, certifications, technical resources, solution updates, partner programs, and strategic field engagement.
• Champion the inclusion of professional services, managed services, lifecycle services, and adjacent technology practices in customer recommendations where they improve customer outcomes.
• Identify process gaps, recurring quality issues, coverage risks, tooling needs, and opportunities for automation; lead practical improvements that increase team capacity and seller experience.
• Communicate team performance, risks, resource needs, accomplishments, and improvement plans to senior leadership through concise, data-supported business reviews and operating updates.
• Participate in recruiting, interviewing, selection, onboarding, and ramp planning for new team members while supporting retention and employee engagement.
• Ensure team activities align with company policies, vendor requirements, customer commitments, ethical standards, and established sales and presales governance.

Education Requirement

• BA/BS in Information Technology, Computer Science, Engineering, Business Administration, Management Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent practical experience.

Certification Requirement

• Current technical, sales, or presales certifications from one or more strategic technology vendors are strongly preferred.
• Leadership, coaching, project management, sales methodology, cloud, security, datacenter, networking, workplace, collaboration, services, or AI-related credentials are desirable based on assigned team scope.
• Demonstrated commitment to maintaining relevant industry knowledge and completing additional training or certifications needed to support strategic partnerships and business priorities.

Required Experience

• Minimum of 8+ years of experience in information technology, solutions architecture, sales engineering, technical consulting, presales, or a related customer-facing technical role.
• Minimum of 3+ years of experience leading, managing, mentoring, or formally coaching technical presales professionals or comparable teams.
• Demonstrated experience supporting complex technology sales cycles and coordinating resources across sales, architecture, engineering, services, operations, vendors, and distribution partners.
• Working knowledge of multiple enterprise technology domains and the ability to recognize dependencies, adjacent opportunities, solution risks, and the need for specialized technical resources.
• Proven ability to translate business objectives into team priorities, operating plans, performance expectations, and measurable outcomes.
• Experience using CRM, pipeline, quoting, collaboration, reporting, and productivity platforms to manage opportunity support and team performance.
• Demonstrated ability to analyze win rate, revenue, gross margin, pipeline, activity, capacity, quality, and customer-impact data and convert findings into practical action plans.
• Experience managing competing priorities, resource constraints, escalations, deadlines, and organizational change in a fast-paced sales environment.
• Excellent written, verbal, presentation, facilitation, and executive communication skills.
• Strong coaching, feedback, conflict-resolution, decision-making, problem-solving, influence, and relationship-management skills.
• Demonstrated ability to lead inclusively, build trust, develop talent, establish accountability, and create a high-performing team culture.
• Ability to communicate credibly with technical specialists, sellers, business leaders, vendor partners, and customer stakeholders.

Key Metrics That Define Success

• Revenue growth, quota attainment support, and gross margin contribution across ISA-supported opportunities.
• Controllable win rate, opportunity progression, cycle-time improvement, and measurable technical influence on supported opportunities.
• Accurate opportunity assignment, ownership, documentation, pipeline visibility, activity tracking, and SLA performance.
• Quality and accuracy of discovery, Bills of Materials, quotes, technical designs, proposals, presentations, and sales-to-delivery handoffs.
• Professional services, managed services, lifecycle, cross-sell, and adjacent-practice attachment and expansion.
• Seller and customer satisfaction with the responsiveness, consistency, expertise, and business value provided by the ISA team.
• Team capability growth measured through development plans, certifications, skills progression, enablement participation, and readiness for expanded responsibilities.
• Employee engagement, retention, internal mobility, succession readiness, and successful onboarding and ramp of new team members.
• Consistent use of required systems, processes, reporting standards, and governance practices.
• Execution of improvement initiatives that increase productivity, capacity, solution quality, collaboration, and customer outcomes.

About You

• You are a people-first leader who sets clear expectations, gives direct and constructive feedback, and invests in the growth of every team member.
• You understand presales execution and can balance customer needs, seller urgency, technical quality, team capacity, and business outcomes.
• You use data to identify trends and make decisions, while staying close enough to the work to understand the context behind the numbers.
• You can lead across multiple technology practices without losing sight of when specialist expertise is required.
• You are comfortable working with executives, sales leaders, technical teams, services organizations, vendors, distributors, and customers.
• You are organized, accountable, adaptable, and calm under pressure, with a consistent focus on communication, follow-through, and continuous improvement.
• You build trust through fairness, transparency, sound judgment, and a willingness to address issues early and directly.

Experience

8 Years

Apply By

Dec 5, 2026

Required Skills

• Solutions Architecture
• Team Enablement
• Process Improvement
• Strategic Planning
• Coaching and Mentoring
• Technical validation
• Customer Engagement
• Performance Management
• Leadership
• Decision Making
• Conflict Resolution
• Communication
• Reporting
• Presales Leadership
• Technical Consulting
• Sales Engineering
• coaching
• Team Management
• CRM
• Pipeline management
• Quoting
• Collaboration tools
• Data Analysis

Nice to Have Skills

• AI
• Project Management
• Sales Methodology
• Vendor Certifications
• Services
• Problem Solving
• Relationship Management
• Executive Communication
• Workplace collaboration
• Networking
• DataCenter
• Security
• cloud