Solutions Architect (Commercial) – Pre-Sales

About the role

The Solutions Architect (Commercial) designs, validates, and articulates commercially viable telecommunications solutions that meet customer requirements while aligning to network capability, operational feasibility, and commercial strategy. The role acts as a technical authority within the sales lifecycle, bridging the gap between the customer, sales teams, network engineering, operations, and product management. The Solutions Architect ensures solutions are technically sound, scalable, financially sustainable, compliant, and aligned to the organisation’s long-term network and growth strategy.

Responsibilities

• Function as technical lead during complex sales engagements.
• Support account managers with solution positioning and differentiation.
• Participate in customer meetings, workshops, and presentations.
• Translate customer business challenges into technical solutions.
• Design end-to-end telecommunications solutions (fibre, access, IP, connectivity, redundancy).
• Evaluate feasibility across network, service, and operational domains.
• Ensure designs comply with network standards and architecture principles.
• Validate scalability, resilience, and future-proofing of solutions.
• Work with finance and product teams to ensure solutions are commercially viable.
• Support pricing models and cost transparency.
• Identify cost optimisation opportunities.
• Balance customer requirements with margin protection.
• Identify technical, operational, and delivery risks.
• Ensure compliance with regulatory and contractual requirements.
• Support contract technical clauses and service level definitions.
• Provide technical coaching and enablement to sales teams.
• Contribute to solution templates and best practices.
• Function as subject matter expert on network and product capabilities.

Requirements

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in:
  • Electrical Engineering
  • Electronic Engineering
  • Computer Engineering
  • Information Systems
  • Telecommunications
• Postgraduate qualification (Honours, BTech, or Master’s) in:
  • Engineering
  • Business Administration (MBA), when combined with strong technical background
• Industry-relevant certifications, such as:
  • Cisco (CCNA / CCNP – Routing & Switching, Service Provider)
  • IP/MPLS or carrier-grade networking certifications
  • Fibre optics or access network certifications (e.g., fibre design, metro networks)
  • TOGAF or solution architecture frameworks (advantageous)

Experience

• 5 – 8 years of relevant experience, with at least 3–5 years in a telecommunications environment, specifically in:
  • Fibre networks
  • Carrier or wholesale services
  • ISP, data centre interconnect, or metro network operators
• Demonstrated experience in Pre-Sales or Sales Enablement, including:
  • Supporting Sales teams in:
    • Technical solution design
    • Proposal and bid responses (RFPs, RFIs)
    • Customer presentations and workshops
  • Translating customer business requirements into:
    • Network designs
    • Service architectures
    • Costed commercial solutions
• Understand fibre-optic infrastructure, transmission technologies, and network architectures.
• Translate technical constraints into commercially viable solutions.
• Engage credibly with customer technical teams and internal engineering stakeholders.
• Accurately scope and qualify customer requirements.
• Align proposed solutions with operational and commercial viability.

Job Type: Permanent

Location: Johannesburg North