Pre Sales SSE Lead (Network)

Job description

Job Description:

1. Role Summary

The Specialist Solution Engineer (SSE) is the deep technical authority that a Solution Architect calls on when a pursuit demands domain expertise beyond breadth. Where the Solution Architect owns the whole solution, the SSE owns their domain within it, going deep where depth wins deals. The SSE is not a generic architect. They are expected to build and hold genuine technical depth across multiple domains, becoming a recognised authority who can operate with rigour wherever the pursuit demands it.

The SSE sits within the Leveraged Centre, shared across all industry teams in UKI Pre-Sales. They are a deep domain expert, a multi domain authority, and a leveraged resource. The Leader will have additional responsibility in managing the team and ensuring we stay aligned to the Networks Practice with capability development.

2. Specialist Domains

The SSE operates across the following specialist domains:

• Security and Cyber

• Cloud and Infrastructure

• Modern Workplace

• Network and Connectivity

• Service Management

SSEs anchor in one domain and actively build depth across others. This multi domain expectation is what distinguishes the SSE from a single tower subject matter expert and makes them genuinely leverageable across the full pursuit portfolio.

3. Key Skills and Capabilities

Deep Technical Authority . Practitioner level expertise able to withstand challenge from client architects. Depth that goes beyond familiarity.

Multi Domain Breadth . Builds genuine depth across multiple domains over time. Not fixed to a single specialism, but growing authority across the portfolio.

Market Pricing and PriceView Fluency . Working knowledge of forward market pricing principles and proficiency in the DXC PriceView tool. All deals are solutioned on market pricing as opposed to traditional bottom up cost plus models. The SSE designs solutions that are commercially grounded from the outset, using PriceView to ensure competitive pricing intelligence informs domain design decisions from day one, rather than retrospectively adjusting solutions after commercial review.

Fast to Value . Becomes productive on a new pursuit quickly. Context switches without loss of depth or relevance across concurrent engagements.

Translates Complexity . Explains deep technical concepts clearly at all levels, from board to architect. Depth without inaccessibility.

Collaborative by Nature . Operates under Solution Architect direction without losing domain ownership. Amplifies the overall solution rather than pulling in a different direction.

Solution Design and Proof of Concept . Develops reference architectures, proofs of concept, and demonstrations that make abstract capability tangible and credible for the client.

Bid Writing Quality . Authors high quality domain content for bid responses that is precise, compelling, and in clear language free of unnecessary complexity.

Answering the Client's Question . The SSE exists to win deals, not to produce technically correct answers in isolation. Every response must directly address the question the client has asked, written in language the client understands, and structured so the evaluator can clearly see the benefits being offered. The SSE must understand that UK public sector and regulated procurements are evaluated against formal scoring frameworks, most commonly MEAT (Most Economically Advantageous Tender) and MAT (Most Advantageous Tender). This means every response must be crafted with the evaluator in mind: demonstrating not just what we will do, but why it matters to the client, how it delivers measurable value, and where it exceeds the minimum requirement. Responses that are technically accurate but fail to articulate benefit in the client's terms, or that do not map clearly to the evaluation criteria, will not score well regardless of their technical merit. The SSE must read the question, answer the question, and make the value unmistakable.

AI Pre-Sales Solutioning Toolset Adoption . Actively embraces and utilises the evolving AI Pre-Sales solutioning toolset as a core part of their working practice. The SSE is expected to integrate AI enabled tools into their daily workflow to accelerate solution design, enhance proposal quality, and improve speed to value on pursuits. This includes leveraging AI for domain research, solution generation, content drafting, pricing analysis, and competitive insight. As the toolset evolves, the SSE maintains proficiency with new capabilities, contributes feedback to improve tool effectiveness, and champions adoption across the wider pre-sales community. The expectation is not passive use but active engagement: shaping how AI tools are applied within their domain and identifying opportunities where AI augmented working delivers genuine competitive advantage in pursuit outcomes.

4. Relationship to the Solution Architect

The SSE operates in close partnership with the Solution Architect, with clearly defined ownership on each side. This clarity of ownership is what makes the partnership productive: the Solution Architect extends their reach through the depth of the SSE, and the work of the SSE is given strategic context and commercial direction by the Solution Architect.

The Solution Architect owns:

• The overall solution narrative

• The client relationship and engagement

• Solution coherence end to end

• Commercial alignment and win strategy

• The solution hypothesis and social value strategy

The Specialist Solution Engineer owns:

• Their domain within the solution

• Technical depth and proof points

• Domain specific client conversations

• Design decisions within their specialism

• The quality of the specialist component

5. Core Responsibilities

Domain Solution Design . Designs the specialist component with rigour and depth. The solution must be technically sound, deliverable, and configured to the client's specific context, not templated.

Technical Client Engagement . Leads or supports domain specific client conversations, engaging credibly at architect and practitioner level to build confidence through depth.

Commercial Input and Market Pricing . Provides domain level input to cost models using forward market pricing principles and the DXC PriceView tool. Solutions are built on market pricing from the outset, not bottom up cost plus, ensuring the domain component supports the price to win position from day one.

Solution Integration . Works under Solution Architect direction to ensure the domain component integrates cleanly, flagging dependencies, risks, and interface points early.

Competitive and Market Insight . Maintains current knowledge of the competitive landscape, vendor roadmaps, and regulatory direction. Contributes to win strategy by identifying genuine differentiators.

Knowledge and Capability Sharing . Actively shares domain insight across the pre-sales community, raising collective capability and feeding the continuous improvement of AI tooling and solution templates.

6. AI Pre-Sales Solutioning Toolset

The SSE is expected to be an active and proficient user of the evolving AI Pre-Sales solutioning toolset. This is not an optional enhancement but a fundamental part of how the role operates. The toolset is designed to augment the domain expertise of the SSE, enabling faster, higher quality outputs across the pursuit lifecycle.

The SSE will use AI tools to support:

• Domain research and competitive analysis

• Accelerated solution design and architecture development

• Drafting and refining bid content to a high standard

• Informing pricing decisions through market intelligence

• Generating and validating technical proof points

• Identifying patterns and insights across the pursuit portfolio

As the AI toolset evolves, the SSE is expected to maintain current proficiency, adapt working practices to incorporate new capabilities, and provide constructive feedback that shapes tool development. The SSE should actively identify opportunities where AI augmentation creates genuine value within their domain and share effective practices with the wider pre-sales community.

The measure of success is not simply tool usage but demonstrable improvement in pursuit speed, solution quality, and win outcomes as a direct result of AI augmented working.

7. What This Role Is Not

This section exists to prevent misalignment. The SSE is a specific type of resource. Clarity on what it is not is as important as clarity on what it is.

This role is not a solution owner. . The Solution Architect owns the overall solution. The SSE owns their domain within it, under the direction of the Solution Architect.

This role is not a single tower specialist. . The expectation is depth across multiple domains over time, not a fixed specialism resource.

This role is not a generic architect. . Breadth without depth is the territory of the Solution Architect. The SSE brings rigour to every domain they operate in.

This role is not pod aligned. . SSEs serve all industry teams from the leveraged centre, allocated on pursuit need, not organisational affiliation.

8. Measures of Success

Performance in the SSE role is assessed against the following measures. These reflect the outputs that matter: winning, quality, and the speed and sustainability of contribution.

Win Rate . Measured on pursuits where the SSE was activated.

Domain Quality . Assessed at solution review gates and by the Solution Architect.

Client Feedback . Quality of technical engagement during the pursuit.

Speed to Value . Ability to become productive on a new pursuit quickly.

Knowledge Contribution . Active sharing of domain insight across the function.

Solution Architect Satisfaction . Effectiveness as a collaborative specialist on pursuits.

AI Toolset Adoption . Demonstrated proficiency and active use of the AI Pre-Sales solutioning toolset, with measurable impact on pursuit speed and output quality.

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