Splunk, a Cisco company, is building a safer and more resilient digital world with an end-to-end full stack platform made for a hybrid, multi-cloud world. Leading enterprises use our unified security and observability platform to keep their digital systems secure and reliable. Our customers love our technology, but it's our caring employees that make Splunk stand out as an amazing career destination. No matter where in the world or what level of the organization, we approach our work with kindness. So bring your work experience, problem-solving skills and talent, of course, but also bring your joy, your passion and all the things that make you, you. Come help organizations be their best, while you reach new heights with a team that has your back. As a Manager of Solutions Architecture for Splunk’s Observability Business Unit, you will hire, motivate, and retain a team of world-class solutions architects, who will in turn provide technical and thought leadership of Splunk’s Observability focused solutions to the sales organization and to Splunk’s prospects and customers. Both you and your team will work directly with customers while acting as the subject matter expert across Splunk’s Observability solutions including the Observability Cloud, IT Service Intelligence, AppDynamics, and Core Splunk technology products. You will be responsible for ensuring that all team members are consistently delivering product demonstrations that directly address customer pain and emphasize Splunk’s unique value proposition. During the sales cycle, you and your team will guide prospects through trials and proof of concepts, demonstrating Splunk’s ability to meet and exceed customer requirements and building a positive relationship that will go beyond the initial transaction and make value contributions to our customers for years to come. Finally, you will have the opportunity to work directly with our Sales, Pre-Sales, Product Management, Engineering, Customer Success, and Marketing teams to share your knowledge and experiences to ultimately improve our business and our customers’ success. **Responsibilities** + Proactively build and lead a team of high-performing Solutions Architects, helping to ensure sales and customer success + Responsible for recruiting and hiring Solutions Architects in your assigned region. + Mentor/coach new hires during on-boarding and subsequent phases to ensure effective ramping of skills and capabilities. + Engage directly with Pre-Sales and Sales Leadership to strategize on their opportunities and engage on pre-sales activities for Splunk’s solutions + Provide Sales Engineers with continual development feedback and regularly collaborate with each individual on a career development plan + Actively drive and handle the technology evaluation stage of the sales process, working in conjunction with the sales team as the key technical advisor and advocate for our service + Answer technical questions from customers regarding Splunk’s AppDev products, features, and solutions, as well as articulate technology and product positioning to both business and technical users + Identify all technical issues of your assigned accounts to assure complete customer happiness through all stages of the sales process + Establish and maintain strong relationships throughout the sales-cycle with our customer's technical and executive staff + Demonstrate Splunk’s value to customers on site, remotely via webinar sessions, and at field events such as conferences and trade shows. Ensure that all team members can do the same + Ability to successfully coordinate multiple opportunities, workshops & POVs concurrently (across region) + Accountable for individual and team expense budget management **Requirements** + 10 years of demonstrated experience in a solutions architect or similar pre-sales role (at a cloud platform/monitoring software company is preferred) + 3+ years’ experience in a people management role and skilled in developing and nurturing interpersonal relationships + Experience with Cisco, commercially available and open source monitoring tools (Grafana, Graphite, Prometheus, etc.) is preferred + Excellent communication, collaboration, and presentation skills + Passionate about technical sales and working with customers + Ambitious and self-motivated with a high emotional intelligence (EQ) + Highly coachable with a strong desire to improve and grow as a professional + Startup experience and some vertical experience + Modern application architecture (micro-services) understanding + Travel up to 30% of the time **Splunk is an Equal Opportunity Employer** Splunk, a Cisco company, is an Equal Opportunity Employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, genetic information, age, disability, veteran status, or any other legally protected basis. As part of Cisco's integration of Splunk and our ongoing job mapping process, the job title for this position was updated on 5/30/25 _._ This change reflects our commitment to aligning roles across the organization while ensuring consistency and clarity. The responsibilities and expectations for this role remain unchanged. On Target Earnings Range: $257,400-$326,700 When available, the salary range posted for this position reflects the projected hiring range for new hire, full-time salaries in U.S. and/or Canada locations, not including equity or benefits. For non-sales roles the hiring ranges reflect base salary only; employees are also eligible to receive annual bonuses. Hiring ranges for sales positions include base and incentive compensation target. Individual pay is determined by the candidate's hiring location and additional factors, including but not limited to skillset, experience, and relevant education, certifications, or training. Applicants may not be eligible for the full salary range based on their U.S. or Canada hiring location. The recruiter can share more details about compensation for the role in your location during the hiring process. U.S. employees have access to quality medical, dental and vision insurance, a 401(k) plan with a Cisco matching contribution, short and long-term disability coverage, basic life insurance and numerous wellbeing offerings. Employees receive up to twelve paid holidays per calendar year, which includes one floating holiday (for non-exempt employees), plus a day off for their birthday. Non-Exempt new hires accrue up to 16 days of vacation time off each year, at a rate of 4.92 hours per pay period. Exempt new hires participate in Cisco’s flexible Vacation Time Off policy, which does not place a defined limit on how much vacation time eligible employees may use but is subject to availability and some business limitations. All new hires are eligible for Sick Time Off subject to Cisco’s Sick Time Off Policy and will have eighty (80) hours of sick time off provided on their hire date and on January 1st of each year thereafter. Up to 80 hours of unused sick time will be carried forward from one calendar year to the next such that the maximum number of sick time hours an employee may have available is 160 hours. Employees in Illinois have a unique time off program designed specifically with local requirements in mind. All employees also have access to paid time away to deal with critical or emergency issues. We offer additional paid time to volunteer and give back to the community. Employees on sales plans earn performance-based incentive pay on top of their base salary, which is split between quota and non-quota components. For quota-based incentive pay, Cisco typically pays as follows: .75% of incentive target for each 1% of revenue attainment up to 50% of quota; 1.5% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 50% and 75%; 1% of incentive target for each 1% of attainment between 75% and 100%; and once performance exceeds 100% attainment, incentive rates are at or above 1% for each 1% of attainment with no cap on incentive compensation. For non-quota-based sales performance elements such as strategic sales objectives, Cisco may pay up to 125% of target. Cisco sales plans do not have a minimum threshold of performance for sales incentive compensation to be paid.