Pre-Sales Solutions Architect

Thought Machine, one of the UK's leading fintech companies, is undergoing a period of rapid expansion and is looking to hire a number of candidates in the role of Pre-Sales Solutions Architect.

Our mission is to cure one of the banking industry's primary problems: its reliance on outdated IT infrastructure. Nearly every bank is stuck on a legacy IT platform, which cripples their ability to innovate and give their customers the type of service they deserve.


Our solution to this is Vault: a complete retail banking platform that is capable of being configured easily to suit the needs of any bank. We have built Vault from the ground up as a cloud native, microservice API architecture platform. Thought Machine has a deep culture of engineering excellence, and we believe it is this which delivers a solution compelling enough to engender a seismic shift in the banking industry.


Thought Machine is looking for highly talented individuals to help grow the company and achieve our ambitious goal. We pride ourselves on having an excellent internal culture, where we strive hard to create the best possible working environment; a healthy mix of great technical work, fast pace, supportive atmosphere, and of course our irreverent sense of fun.

Thought Machine hires team members of excellent calibre in every role. While a lot will be asked of you, you will benefit greatly from working in a world class team, with colleagues who excel. Working at Thought Machine is fast paced and team oriented with an emphasis in delivering the highest quality work in every role.


Thought Machine’s mission is to revolutionise the technology in banking, and provide banks with new next generation systems that rid the banks of their legacy IT stacks. As such, the role of a Sales Engineer is critical as it is the quality of our technology that gives the company our competitive advantage, and being able to communicate this is key to our success.


DUTIES

* Product Demos. Be able to give out of the box demos and create custom demos where required to illustrate specific functionality. This could require changing configuration of standard demos to meet custom requirements.
* Technical and Functional presentations. A sales engineer will need to understand Vault from a technical and functional perspective and how to present this information from perspective of prospective clients.
* Target State Solution Architecture Workshops. Work with prospective customers to understand their target state and understand where Vault would fit in their overall solution.
* Vault Solution Workshops. Run and participate in workshops with prospective customer to understand what the final Vault solution will look like, identifying product and configuration gaps.
* Gather market information from interaction with prospective and current customers: market insight, trend spotting, etc.
* Build trusted relationships with individuals from prospective and current customers
* RFI and RFP responses.
* Create proposals targeted at individual prospective clients to meet their needs.
* Show commercial awareness around enterprise software licensing models and procurement processes and cycles implemented by banks.



Requirements

* Knowledge of internal bank processes around retail banking/core banking/payments etc.
* Prior experience with development teams and solution architecture - knowledge of full SDLC
* Understanding and knowledge of current trends in technology, specifically in banking and fintech and be able to show thought leadership in this area
* Excellent communication skills - spoken, written, presentation
* Commercial awareness (understand pricing models and commercial aspects of sales process)
* Ability to lead client engagements and workshops
* Background in fintech, vendor or consultancy and have an extensive background in client facing roles

* Enterprise/Solution Architecture, specifically relating to retail banking/core banking/payments etc
* Knowledge of cloud infrastructure and large scale distributed software applications are architected and deployed to the cloud
* Pre Sales experience/exposure. Must have been involved in a sales process and show demonstrable experience.
* Experience of large mission critical product implementations into large financial institutions from Vendor side - project profile: mission critical, large transaction volumes, large data migrations, complex system integrations, vendor product implementation

Benefits

* Competitive salary
* Share options
* Pension
* Healthcare (including dental & optical)
* Other perks like sports clubs, healthy (and sometimes not so healthy) snacks, tea and coffee
* A talented & experienced team as your colleagues
* An environment where you can learn and progress
* Friday team wrap up with drinks and food!