About this Specialist Solutions Engineer - Managed Services role at Thinkahead
Thinkahead · Hybrid · Seattle, Washington
AHEAD builds platforms for digital business. By weaving together advances in cloud infrastructure, automation and analytics, and software delivery, we help enterprises deliver on the promise of digital transformation.
At AHEAD, we prioritize creating a culture of belonging, where all perspectives and voices are represented, valued, respected, and heard. We create spaces to empower everyone to speak up, make change, and drive the culture at AHEAD.
We are an equal opportunity employer, and do not discriminate based on an individual's race, national origin, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law, whether actual or perceived.
We embrace all candidates that will contribute to the diversification and enrichment of ideas and perspectives at AHEAD.
As a Specialist Solutions Engineer (SSE) on the Managed Services team, you will be a key contributor in presales engagements with our clients to design, scope, and position outcomes-based managed services solutions across infrastructure, cloud, Microsoft, networking, security, and observability.
In this role, you will collaborate with clients, account teams, and service delivery leaders to define business objectives, operational requirements, transition plans, and long-term support strategy.
This includes defining customer requirements, translating them into service scope, building proposals and pricing, aligning tooling, and ensuring a clean handoff into onboarding and Day 2 operations.
Your goal as a Specialist Solutions Engineer should be to build skills, relationships, and industryDuties & Responsibilities:
- Engage customers to understand business challenges, support gaps, operational pain points, and desired outcomes for managed services engagements.
- Lead discovery and scoping conversations for managed services covering combinations of infrastructure, cloud, Microsoft, networking, storage, backup/data protection, virtualization, VDI, service desk, and security operations.
- Design integrated, outcomes-based support models that include 24x7 monitoring and event management, incident/change/request handling, platform administration, and continual service improvement.
- Define service boundaries, inventory assumptions, onboarding activities, tooling requirements, and operational handoff needs, including monitoring integration, ITSM workflows, runbook development, and knowledge transfer.
- Build and refine client-facing proposals, service descriptions, pricing inputs, and solution summaries that clearly articulate what AHEAD will deliver and how the service creates lasting business impact.
- Collaborate with Managed Services delivery, Client Success Managers, project teams, and account teams to validate supportability, govern transitions, and align the presales design with operational reality.
- Present managed services solutions, answer technical and operational questions, and explain AHEAD’s delivery model, staffing approach, SLA/SLO framework, and governance cadence to clients and internal stakeholders.
- Identify opportunities to expand managed services relationships through renewals, cross-sell motions, new service towers, and platform adjacencies.
Technical Expertise:
- Experience working in a managed services or recurring-services presales environment across one or more of the following domains:
- Infrastructure and cloud observability
- Network, virtualization, storage, and data protection operations
- Microsoft 365 suite
- Endpoint management and Service Desk operations
- Security services operations
- Broad understanding of managed infrastructure services such as network infrastructure, UCaaS, compute/OS, virtualization, VDI, and storage platforms.
- Familiarity with Microsoft 365 suite managed operations.
- Ability to scope managed data protection, monitoring, and operational tooling services, including backup platforms, observability platforms, ITSM integration, dashboards, alerting, and automated escalation workflows.
- Ability to partner with service delivery, operations, architects, and adjacent practice teams to identify and build solutions for customers.
- Provide market and field input to management, pricing, packaging, and future managed services offerings based on live customer demand and solutioning experience.
- Participate in continued education to maintain and grow technical depth across managed services domains and vendor ecosystems.
Pre-Sales Expertise:
- Experience conducting discovery, whiteboarding, and solution design sessions that convert customer needs into configurable managed services engagements.
- Experience creating proposals, service briefs, solution estimates, inventory-based pricing, and supporting documentation for new managed services opportunities and renewals.
- Ability to identify, validate, and grow opportunities in high-potential accounts through consultative conversations and strong collaboration with sellers and specialists.
- Increase customer confidence through clear communications, professionalism, and well-defined service scope, assumptions, and onboarding plans.
- Preferred experience in pricing and scoping outcome-based or fixed-scope managed service designs.
Requirements:
- Must have a at least 5 years of experience selling, designing, supporting, or configuring enterprise infrastructure, cloud, or managed services solutions in a customer-facing role.
- Must have the ability to analyze existing and anticipated client requirements and promote consideration of companies’ solutions and services to meet the client’s requirements.
- Demonstrated ability to work with and communicate with other team members.
- Must have excellent communication, documentation, and customer facing skills.
- A desire to learn and be a problem solver.
Education & Training:
- 10+ years of hands-on experience in IT.
- 5+ years of experience in an Engineer, Consultant, or Solutions Engineering role.
- Industry-recognized certifications from relevant vendors or platforms are preferred.
Position Type & Expected Hours of Work:
- Position Type: Full-time, permanent position, 40 hours/week.
- Position Location: Hybrid with up to 10% travel.
- Travel Requirements:
- Internal Company events and meetings
- Vendor conferences and events
- On-site Customer meetings and Marketing events
The compensation range indicated in this posting reflects the On-Target Earnings (“OTE”) for this role, which includes a base salary and any applicable target bonus amount. This OTE range may vary based on the candidate’s relevant experience, qualifications, and geographic location.
Why AHEAD:
Through our daily work and internal groups like Moving Women AHEAD and RISE AHEAD, we value and benefit from diversity of people, ideas, experience, and everything in between.
We fuel growth by stacking our office with top-notch technologies in a multi-million-dollar lab, by encouraging cross department training and development, sponsoring certifications and credentials for continued learning.
USA Employment Benefits include:
- Medical, Dental, and Vision Insurance
- 401(k)
- Paid company holidays
- Paid time off
- Paid parental and caregiver leave
Use of AI:
We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support parts of the hiring process, such as reviewing applications, analyzing resumes, assessing responses, or to capture recordings and create transcriptions or summaries during interviews. These tools assist our recruitment team but do not replace human judgment. Final hiring decisions are ultimately made by humans.
If you would like more information about how your data is processed, please refer to the Candidate Privacy Notice or contact us at privacy@ahead.com.
You may opt-out of the review or analysis of your application and resume by AI tools by using the General Application. Please include the role you wish to apply for in the Additional Information field. You may also choose to opt-out of recording and transcription at any time, including after joining an interview. Candidates will not be penalized for choosing to opt-out.
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