Enterprise Solution Architect - Pre-Sales&Strategy, Johannesburg

Role Overview The Solution Architect acts as a trusted technical advisor for customers and partners, ensuring that SUSE’s solutions align with their business and technical needs. Working closely with regional sales and partner teams, the architect drives technical excellence in solution design and positions SUSE as a leader in the industry.

Key Responsibilities

Engage with customers to understand their technical and business needs, building valued relationships and acting as a trusted advisor.

Lead the technical aspects of deal progression, including product demonstrations, technical presentations, proofs of concept, and responding to customer objections.

Gather and communicate customer feedback to product, strategy, and engineering teams, ensuring customer needs influence product updates and messaging.

Collaborate with Field and Specialist Sales, Partner Ecosystem, and Customer Success teams to create account plans that drive solution adoption and satisfaction.

Contribute to go‑to‑market strategies with regional sales and support marketing efforts through presentations, blogs, and speaking engagements.

Analyze competitor offerings and develop differentiation strategies for SUSE solutions.

Prepare technical responses to RFIs, RFPs, and RFQs.

Transfer knowledge to pre‑sales peers and contribute to internal education through mentoring and training.

Maintain CRM hygiene by updating all opportunity activity accurately.

Skills&Experience

Experience in technical consulting, pre‑sales engineering, or solution architecture focused on enterprise software.

Proficiency with Linux systems, open‑source software, cloud computing, and container technologies such as Kubernetes.

Strong communication skills for articulating complex technical solutions to audiences up to CXO level.

Experience creating technical demonstrations and whitepapers that illustrate product value.

Excellent problem‑solving abilities and a proven track record of delivering innovative, value‑driven solutions.

Collaborative mindset with experience working cross‑functionally with sales, engineering, and customer success teams.

Design and delivery of scalable, secure, reliable enterprise solutions.

Consultative selling skills and ability to build trusted advisor relationships.

Competitor analysis and solution positioning expertise.

CRM experience (e.g., Salesforce, Clari) for managing pipelines and tracking technical validation.

What We Offer This role is part of a fast‑growing, open‑source organization that values entrepreneurship, agility, and continuous learning. Employees collaborate across global teams and work with cutting‑edge technologies to solve complex customer challenges.

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