Solutions Architect - Enterprise Networking & Cyber Security

Provide technical expertise in gathering and analyzing customer requirements, recommending fit-for-purpose solutions, and assisting Sales, Service Delivery, OEM and Partnerships, and other Presales consultants with the development of customer proposals, quotations, and presentations.

Providing technical pre-sales guidance to various entities to promote and sell business solutions to support customers with their existing business challenges surrounding Cyber Security and Enterprise Networking.

As a Solutions Architect, you will be required to respond to proposals for enterprise customers, meeting basic requirements and identifying & proposing transformation solutions.

Minimum Requirements:

1. Candidate requires either a valid Cisco CCNP as a minimum and preferably also a Huawei HCSP-Presales-IP Network certification.
2. Must have RFP / RFQ / RFI and Tender response experience from a Presales perspective.
3. Sound technical proposal writing skills from a Solutions Architecture and Presales perspective.
4. Attention to detail and timeline driven in the response to bid response deadlines.
5. The candidate must be able to work in a diverse team across multiple business areas to pull complex bids together.
6. Ensure opportunities are qualified correctly and the SQS is completed to ensure the correct process is activated.
7. Ensure assigned opportunities are driven to a co-operative qualification with Sales and that you review requirements to appropriately assign a Bid type to the opportunity to ensure governance.
8. Embed yourself in all aspects of the RFx documentation to clearly understand customers' needs and requirements from a technical and business perspective.
9. Ensure that you set up Technical Workstream directory on the customer current projects on SharePoint, all documentation to be online accessible.
10. Support Sales in the qualification by attendance of the Deal Approval Committee (DAC).
11. Solution Architecture is responsible for the collection of all pricing elements that make up the customer proposal, ensure that this process is followed and that Sales is engaged with.
12. Ability to work closely with customers and deal with them in a professional manner.
13. Drive the Solution Review process and ensure that this is documented and approval is obtained.
14. Excellent verbal and written communication skills, including ability to produce clear and detailed pre-sales and technical documentation.
15. Strong presentation skills, able to articulate both the technical and business value propositions of proposed solutions.
16. Advanced problem-solving, decision-making, analytical and forward planning skills.
17. Advanced skills in customer relations management.
18. Advanced ability to manage service delivery contracts holistically.
19. Able to work under continuous strenuous challenging conditions.
20. Knowledge and understanding of the corporate identity of the organization and the governance mechanisms utilized to govern the corporate identity.
21. Knowledge and understanding of the company policies and procedures applicable to the specific work environment to ensure that work outcomes are compliant with the policies and procedures.
22. Sound knowledge of ISO industry standards.
23. High levels of proficiency in Computer literacy (ideally MS Office suite, Visio, etc).
24. Ability to work under pressure and meet deadlines whilst ensuring that high quality is maintained at all times.
25. Ability to multi-task and work independently.
26. Sound listening skills.
27. Valid driver's license with own transport.

Experience:

Minimum of 4-8 years of experience in Enterprise Networking, preferably customer facing, including solution architecture design and implementation experience with Huawei, Cisco, Aruba, H3C, Meraki, Juniper and Extreme Networks platforms.

Enterprise Firewall experience with Checkpoint, Palo Alto, Sophos, Fortinet, Juniper, and Huawei.

Experience in Cyber Security technologies like PAM, IAM, CASB (Netskope), NAC, EDR, SIEM / SOC, SASE, WAF, ZTNA, MFA, DDoS, DLP, Mimecast, Sentinel One, N-Able, etc required.

Tertiary:

Grade 12 or equivalent NQF level 6 qualification.

Professional:

BSC Computer Science or equivalent NQF Level 6 / 7, TOGAF, ITIL, COBIT certification advantageous.

Candidate requires either a valid Cisco CCNP as a minimum and preferably also a Huawei HCSP-Presales-IP Network certification.

Candidate also requires some or all the following industry certifications: Fortinet NSE 4 / 5, ISC – Certified, Cisco Cyber Security Certified, CompTIA Security+.

Relevant Technical pre-sales certifications in security solutions (Palo Alto / Fortinet / Cisco / Microsoft / Sophos / Netskope / Checkpoint) highly advantageous.