Sales Engineer - South Africa (via 3rd Party) in Oxford

About Us

Sophos is a global leader and innovator of advanced security solutions for defeating cyberattacks. The company acquired Secureworks in February 2025, bringing together two pioneers that have redefined the cybersecurity industry with their innovative, native AI-optimized services, technologies and products. Sophos is now the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, supporting more than 28,000 organizations. In addition to MDR and other services, Sophos’ complete portfolio includes industry-leading endpoint, network, email, and cloud security that interoperate and adapt to defend through the Sophos Central platform. Secureworks provides the innovative, market-leading Taegis XDR/MDR, identity threat detection and response (ITDR), next-gen SIEM capabilities, managed risk, and a comprehensive set of advisory services. Sophos sells all these solutions through reseller partners, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) worldwide, defending more than 600,000 organizations worldwide from phishing, ransomware, data theft, other everyday and state-sponsored cybercrimes. The solutions are powered by historical and real-time threat intelligence from Sophos X-Ops and the newly added Counter Threat Unit (CTU). Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K.

Role:

The Field Sales Engineer is a pre-sales engineering role providing technical expertise in sales engagements and partner enablement. They will develop technical strategies for customer and channel success and actively manage multiple concurrent PoC’s to drive adoption of Sophos products and services.

What You Will Do

• Provide presale technical expertise aligned with the sales team focusing on our most valuable partners and accounts.
• Drive meaningful conversations with CISO-level stakeholders and other key customer technical decision-makers to understand customer requirements and position appropriate solutions in line with business objectives.
• Serve as trusted advisors and technical lead on Sophos next-gen portfolio products and services opportunities.
• Perform health checks and policy reviews to drive cross-sell and deepen customer relationships.
• Conduct and manage technical virtual and onsite meetings, product demos, and proof of concepts with customers.
• Provide field-based support for events and face-to-face time with prospects and customers.
• Own and drive the technical sales cycle from early opportunity technical qualification to technical closure.
• Provide support for customer success motions to promote cross-selling and portfolio expansion within the current Sophos customer base.
• Work with customers and partners in South Africa and SADC region. This role will be customer/partner facing and as such, travel is expected to be 25% - 50% in region.

What You Will Bring

• Solution selling: Focuses on understanding desired outcomes and showing value for Sophos, partners and customers. Can act as a trusted advisor to customers and partners, demonstrating extensive knowledge and experience of market trends and techniques.
• Presentation skills: Ability to build and confidently deliver engaging demonstrations and messages that show value to buyers.
• Product knowledge: Have strong knowledge of networking and MDR/EDR (Sophos or other vendor’s services) either in a pre-sales capacity or a hands-on role. You will show the ability to rapidly gain technical understanding of Sophos products, services and solutions in order to present meaningfully to clients and partners.
• Strong security-sector understanding and have the ability to present multi-product solutions that align with client business outcomes.
• The ability to build effective and successful relationships with internal and external teams.
• Able to work independently and as part of a wider team.

It would be interesting to understand your prior knowledge around any of the following areas:

• Network Security
• Endpoint security / EDR
• MDR / XDR
• Cloud (AWS, Azure, GCP) & Microsoft Identity
• Email Security
• Incident Response
• Pen-testing

Ready to Join Us?

At Sophos, we believe in the power of diverse perspectives to fuel innovation. Research shows that candidates sometimes hesitate to apply if they don’t check every box in a job description. We challenge that notion. Your unique experiences and skills might be exactly what we need to enhance our team. Don’t let a checklist hold you back – we encourage you to apply.

What’s Great About Sophos?

• Sophos operates a remote-first working model, making remote work the primary option for most employees. However, some roles may necessitate a hybrid approach. "Remote-first" means that the role can be performed remotely, but the candidate must be located within the jurisdiction where the role is posted.
• Our people – we innovate and create, all of which are accompanied by a great sense of fun and team spirit.
• Employee-led diversity and inclusion networks that build community and provide education and advocacy.
• Annual charity and fundraising initiatives and volunteer days for employees to support local communities.
• Global employee sustainability initiatives to reduce our environmental footprint.
• Global fitness and trivia competitions to keep our bodies and minds sharp.
• Global wellbeing days for employees to relax and recharge.
• Monthly wellbeing webinars and training to support employee health and wellbeing.

Our Commitment To You

We’re proud of the diverse and inclusive environment we have at Sophos, and we’re committed to ensuring equality of opportunity. We believe that diversity, combined with excellence, builds a better Sophos, so we encourage applicants who can contribute to the diversity of our team. All applicants will be treated in a fair and equal manner and in accordance with the law regardless of gender, sex, gender reassignment, marital status, race, religion or belief, color, age, military veteran status, disability, pregnancy, maternity or sexual orientation. We want to give you every opportunity to show us your best self, so if there are any adjustments we could make to the recruitment and selection process to support you, please let us know.

Data Protection

If you choose to explore an opportunity, and subsequently share your CV or other personal details with Sophos, these details will be held by Sophos for 12 months in accordance with our Privacy Policy and used by our recruitment team to contact you regarding this or other relevant opportunities at Sophos. If you would like Sophos to delete or update your details at any time, please follow the steps set out in the Privacy Policy describing your individual rights. For more information on Sophos’ data protection practices, please consult our Privacy Policy.