Senior Solution Architect in Bristol

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Rowden is building the next UK-headquartered engineering powerhouse. We design and integrate advanced systems that sense, connect, and protect data in environments where fast, informed decision-making is vital. Our mission is to deliver mission advantage to those working to safeguard national security, public safety, and critical infrastructure. Headquartered in Bristol (UK), we combine modern engineering methods with cutting-edge commercial technology to create adaptable, mission-critical systems. We focus on solving the tough challenges that others overlook, ensuring our customers can operate effectively in an ever-changing world.

About the role

We are looking for a Senior Solution Architect (Pre-Sales) who will take the lead in developing compelling, creative solutions that meet complex user needs. You'll be responsible for engaging with customers to understand their requirements - spanning technical, supportability, assurance, and governance - and for developing engineering-led proposals that turn early ideas into clear, structured delivery models. This means balancing scope, resources, and partnerships to create solutions that are both innovative and achievable within agreed budgets. You'll also build trusted, long-term relationships with stakeholders across government and industry.

This is a hands-on role for engineers and technical consultants who are passionate about problem-solving and enjoy working directly with customers. You'll add value throughout the sales cycle and into delivery kick-off: capturing requirements, iterating on solution designs, running workshops or demos, writing proposals, and developing end-to-end solutions frontline operators can depend on in the most demanding environments.

You might be a systems engineer who's built up experience in pre-sales and customer engagement. You enjoy the challenge of balancing technical insight with commercial and delivery considerations. You understand risks, assumptions, and barriers to adoption, and use that awareness to shape solutions that are both impactful and achievable. You stay curious about new technologies and competitor approaches, and feed technical insights back into engineering and product roadmaps to help shape future solutions.

Key areas of responsibility

• Engaging with customers through workshops and demos to capture and refine requirements, explore problem and solution statements, develop use cases, and iterate on designs in real time.
• Leading the development of solution designs for RFIs and proposals, incorporating diverse technology stacks and engineering approaches to ensure systems are scalable, secure, and efficient.
• Translating complex technical concepts into clear, accessible materials for customers, business stakeholders, and technical teams.
• Assessing costs, risks, and delivery implications of technical decisions, including potential challenges and barriers to adoption.
• Collaborating with legal, commercial, finance, and delivery teams to ensure solutions are viable and aligned to customer expectations.
• Conducting technical assurance reviews on proposals to ensure they address customer problems.
• Researching the latest developments in core digital technologies (e.g. cloud, sensors, autonomy, software), identifying differentiators to strengthen Rowden's competitive position, and feeding insights directly into product and service roadmaps.
• Identifying and building partnerships to strengthen solutions and delivery models.
• Supporting smooth handover to delivery, engaging across functions to maintain alignment from contract award to project execution.
• Working closely with product teams to ensure early-stage products are positioned credibly in customer solutions, shaped by customer requirements and informed by feedback.
• Representing Rowden externally at customer meetings, partner forums, and industry events in the UK, building relationships and raising brand visibility.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

This role offers the opportunity to make a significant impact on our company's growth and success. We seek a passionate professional committed to national security and technology, with a dedication to continuous self-improvement:

• Experience in a pre-sales, solution development or engineering role, preferably within government, defence national security or other critical industries.
• Broad technical knowledge across cloud, comms, data, and software integration.
• Strong proposal development skills, including technical writing, and cost/scope analysis.
• Excellent communication skills, confident presenting to both technical and non-technical audiences in a persuasive and engaging manner.
• Comfortable working in a highly dynamic scale-up environment, multitasking across different projects and helping to shape the function.
• Ability to work collaboratively in a cross-functional team setting.
• Results-oriented, consistently meeting and exceeding critical goals and deadlines.
• Good commercial awareness, shaping solutions that are both effective and achievable within budget.

Nice to have: experience with international customers and adoption, including export controls and regulatory requirements.

About you:

We are looking for a driven professional who not only thrives in driving sales but genuinely cares about delivering better customer service to our customers and frontline operators. The ideal candidate will have a strong balance of technical skills and experience, coupled with key behavioral competencies critical for success:

• A genuine passion for technology and staying up to date with the latest industry trends.
• Eager to learn and get involved in all aspects of the role, from technical development to customer interactions.
• Tackles problems with creativity and innovation, seeking novel and effective solutions.
• Strong written, verbal, and presentation skills, capable of engaging effectively at all business and government levels.
• Enjoys collaborating with various teams to develop impactful solutions.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are! We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.

Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don't meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we'd still love to hear from you!