Global Head of Solutions Architecture - Silk

About Silk  

Silk is a Sequoia-backed company. Silk gives demanding workloads 10x faster performance on the cloud compared to native cloud alone. Without refactoring, applications can move to the cloud while massively improving the end user experience. Industry leaders in e-commerce, financial services, and healthcare trust Silk with their business-critical workloads to get the ultra-fast speeds their customers demand at a fraction of the cost. For more information, visit https://silk.us/. 

About the role: 

The Solution Architect team plays a crucial role in partnering with sales reps to focus on generating revenue from both new and existing customers. The ideal candidate will be an experienced technology and strategic leader and manager to maximize the team’s capability to meet the business and technical requirements of our clients. Using their proven experience in business-value-selling, this individual will ensure they work together with customers to understand and demonstrate the value our platform can bring to their business. 

The Opportunity: 

The Head of Solution Architecture will lead a global team of Solution Architects / Pre-Sales Engineers. Role details: 

Solution Architecture Excellence: 

• Manage and optimize the time and skills of the SA team. 
• Optimize the Silk POC process and build a strategy and manage, to accelerate our Qualified Stage 2, to Discovery Stage 3, to Executive Readout Stage 4 process. 
• Ensure the delivery of 6 completed POCs/quarter. 
• Build out our Discovery best practices methodology. 
• Travel on a bi/tri-weekly basis with SVP of Sales to meet with Prospects, Customers, and Partners to help capture customer and prospect sentiment. 
• Regularly in lock-step with SVP of Sales to help drive continuous innovation. 
• Conduct compelling senior and executive-level presentations and whiteboard exercises. 
• Develop and deploy measurable team KPIs. 
• Validate all reference architecture designs from a Pre-Sales to Post-Sales handoff process. 
• Review and approve all POC plans. 

Work with main interfaces: 

Software Release: 

• Work with Product Management to design a closed-loop software release methodology to align field and Engineering expectations. 
• Enable SAs to leverage and position newly gained product release knowledge. 
• Validate that release notes are complete and accurate. 
• Work with SVP of Sales and BizOps to ensure proper field feedback is captured and socialized with Product Management and Engineering. 
• Ensure open bi-directional communication from Engineering to the SA organization. 

Product Marketing: 

• Work with SVP of Sales and BizOps to ensure proper field feedback is captured and socialized with Marketing. 
• Able to influence Product roadmap with fact-based insights. 
• Help develop a short-, mid-, and long-term Product Strategy based upon data-driven TAM insights. 
• Capture Market trends to: 
• --- Influence product marketing content development 
• --- Educate other departments on current product messaging. 
• --- Work with GTM team to craft product storytelling vision and voice. 

Value Engineering: 

• Enable SA team to help position the TCO and BVA process as an integrated part of opportunity discovery. 
• Work with Product Management team to conduct value exercises. 
• Assist with Customer Success in conducting post-sales Value Realization exercises. 

Silk is an Equal Opportunity Employer and provides extensive benefits including: 

• Competitive salary and benefits (medical, dental, vision, 401k, savings and spending accounts, Employee Assistance Program, company-paid disability and Life and AD&D Insurance) 
• Equity options at hire and potential for additional based on performance 
• Flexible hours, with the expectation that you overlap the main part of the day to serve our customers, meet deadlines, collaborate with colleagues, and attend key meetings. 
• Unlimited paid time off 

In compliance with federal law, all persons hired will be required to verify identity and eligibility to work in the United States and to complete the required employment eligibility verification document form upon hire.  

Silk does not and shall not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion (creed), gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability, marital status, sexual orientation, or military status, in any of its activities or operations. We are committed to providing an inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of our staff, clients, volunteers, subcontractors, vendors, and clients. (Research shows that women and people from underrepresented groups only apply to jobs if they meet all of the qualifications. However, no one ever meets 100% of the qualifications. Silk encourages you to break that statistic and to apply. We look forward to your application.)

Requirements:

• 7+ years of experience successfully working in cloud-based environments with mid/high-range and Enterprise customers. 
• Proven track record of managing and developing teams. 
• Proven record in selling to, through or with public cloud vendors; Technical understanding of Cloud deployment, mainly Azure and GCP. 
• Experience selling to the C-level. 
• Cloud, Kubernetes & database (e.g., Oracle, SQL, Elastic, MongoDB) skills – preferred. 
• Must be comfortable and motivated to work in a dynamic start-up environment, where agility and energy level are crucial. 
• Fast learner, eagerness to learn, and face new technological challenges. 
• Self-disciplined, self-motivated, able to lead end-to-end processes while working with a geographically dispersed team.  
• Inspirational leadership style with a hands-on approach. 
• Ideal fit to the Silk culture – highly ambitious and results-driven, never give up, hands-on and detailed oriented, a self-starter / motivator. 

Other Details: 

• The position will report to the SVP of Global Sales  
• Silk is headquartered in the Greater Boston area, and the ideal candidate will be located close to the office and willing to come in on a hybrid basis.  
• Approximately 50% travel is expected.