Manager, Solutions Architecture - Platforms (Chicago)

Who We Are

About Stripe

Stripe is a financial infrastructure platform for businesses. Millions of companies—from the world’s largest enterprises to the most ambitious startups—use Stripe to accept payments, grow their revenue, and accelerate new business opportunities. Our mission is to increase the GDP of the internet, and we have a staggering amount of work ahead. That means you have an unprecedented opportunity to put the global economy within everyone’s reach while doing the most important work of your career.

About The Team

The Platforms Solutions Architecture Team partners with our users to realize their full potential through the adoption of prescriptive solutions that drive their growth and success.

We work with C-level executives, finance leaders, product design and engineering teams at global brands and platforms who are building financial services solutions with Stripe. Our SA team works closely with Account Executives, Professional Services, Customer Success Managers, Partners, Technical Account Managers and Product Teams to develop and execute on the account strategy for SaaS Platforms of all shapes (Vertical/Horizontal) and sizes (Velocity/Enterprise). We also work with the world's most innovative startups users to position our offerings and solutions for their use cases. 

At Stripe, managers grow teams and inspire them to do outstanding work. This leader must be a driver who loves building teams and growing businesses. This role requires great interpersonal skills to work cross functionally, as a trusted advisor to both our sales, partner and professional services teams, as well as, with our product development and marketing teams. As a manager/leader of Solution Architecture for our existing business, you will lead, build, and mentor a world class pre-sales engineering team to grow the existing user base through upsells, cross-sells, and cosells. You will drive collaboration from cross-functional teams to influence and unify stakeholders at all levels of the organization to drive business results. You will lead from the front and drive outcomes for our users. 

What You’ll Do

Responsibilities

• Business and technical thought leader able to partner and drive the strategy and execution plan for the segment, working with cross functional partners
• Recruit, hire, lead, retain and coach a world class pre sales team. Be an advocate for the solution architecture team within the organization
• Align with a leader for your segment to understand trends and share insights for Stripe’s leadership and product teams
• Nurture and be the role-model of a positive outlook, can-do attitude and growth mindset, while leading and keeping the SAs motivated in a fast paced and ever changing environment
• Define and drive success for your team by empowering them to nurture and grow existing business through upsells and cross sell motions
• Partner closely with Sales, Marketing and Technical Teams (Professional Services, Partners, Product, Development, etc) to develop joint go-to-market initiatives that drive positive user experience and outcomes while driving revenue retention and growth
• Executive engagement skills and presence, with an ability to establish strong relationships with key decision makers and build credibility at all levels
• Serve as an executive champion and lead EBCs with key customers
• Maintain a strong internal relationship with the product teams and champion the voice of our users and customers to influence product direction and feature priorities
• Drive collaboration across teams to influence and unify stakeholders at all levels of the organization
• Lead and support the team in complex evaluations, problem solving and challenging customer environments
• Build processes to measure the performance and impact of the Solutions Architecture Team and ensure that the team is optimized to meet rapidly evolving business needs
• Stay current on industry trends and competitive dynamics, and leverage this knowledge to shape strategy around user engagements 
• Represent Stripe at industry events and conferences, customer business reviews and contribute to new ideas and industry best practices
• Act as an escalation point for pre-sales and post sales technical issues that arise

Minimum Requirements

• You must have at least 3+ years of pre-sales leadership experience
• 10+ years’ experience within a technical sales / consulting / implementation/ GTM function
• A track record of building and leading world-class solution architecture/ engineering  teams ideally in a SaaS or usage-based businesses
• Energy, enthusiasm, and passion for making customers successful
• Previous technical sales experience with APIs and/or payments industry experience
• Strong executive presence and ability to foster deep relationships with our users
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent military experience required
• Willingness to travel approximately 25% of the time to engage with customers and collaborate with internal teams
• Bonus - Experience working with SaaS Platform business models