Head of Solutions Architecture, US East

Description About Upwind Upwind is a next-generation Cloud Security Platform that leverages runtime context to identify and prioritize critical risks, providing precise insights and efficient cloud security management. Unlike traditional tools, Upwind uses runtime data proactively for risk prioritization and posture insights, ensuring teams focus on what truly matters. With industry-leading efficiency and eBPF-powered sensors, Upwind delivers comprehensive capabilities, including agent less cloud posture discovery, real-time threat protection, and integrated API security. From misconfigurations to malware defense, Upwind ensures end-to-end, cost-effective cloud infrastructure protection. At Upwind, you’ll have the opportunity to think creatively, explore new ideas, and use your skills to make a meaningful impact on our growth. About The Role As the Head of the Solutions Architect - East team at Upwind, you will drive a team of expert Solutions Architects that is deeply committed to building meaningful relationships with customers, focusing on their value and thinking strategically about bringing deals to close. You will be responsible for leading and growing the Solutions Architect team that partners with account executives to help those companies understand and deploy Upwind’s products. This will include leveraging your technical skills and consultative sales experience to hire great people, establish processes for the team to scale, and represent Upwind directly at strategic customer engagements. Responsibilities Hire, manage, and guide a team of Solutions Architects by providing both technical leadership and career development support. Be deeply involved in customer-facing engagements, serving as an escalation point for the SA team and helping drive complex problem-solving initiatives for strategic customers. Enable the SA organization’s success by building scalable strategies, improving processes, identifying operational gaps, and addressing challenges at the root-cause level. Set goals for your team in collaboration with Sales and other cross-functional stakeholders to establish clear expectations, accountability, and measurable performance outcomes. Act as a technical sponsor for high-value strategic customers and advise them on their overall security adoption strategies, use case scoping, and POC execution. Partner closely with Industries sales leadership to identify new strategies to drive adoption of Upwind products across specific verticals and horizontal use cases. Work cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Marketing teams to influence roadmap priorities, amplify customer feedback, remove blockers to adoption, and improve go-to-market effectiveness. Coach and mentor the SA team on customer engagement, technical strategy, and execution excellence while helping guide the overall direction and maturity of the organization. Travel to customer sites or conferences for executive-level sessions, technical workshops, and relationship building. Establish a shared vision for creating solutions that enable beneficial and safe AI in technology products. Contribute to thought leadership through conference presentations, webinars, and technical content creation. Stay current with emerging AI trends and the competitive landscape. Requirements You May Be a Good Fit If You Have: 5+ years of experience as a Solutions Architect, Sales Engineer, or similar pre-sales technical role. 3+ years of technical pre-sales management experience. Have deep technical proficiency with cloud security industry Thrive in building and rapidly scaling teams and processes within ambiguous and fast-moving environments. Have excellent communication, collaboration, and coaching abilities. Strong executive presence and ability to foster deep relationships with technical leaders and engineering teams at Fortune 500 companies. Have a passion for making powerful technology safe and societally beneficial. Stay up-to-date and informed by taking an active interest in emerging research and industry trends within cloud security Strong Candidates May Have: Enterprise Solutions Architect leadership at scale: 5+ years leading solution architect teams through hyper growth (ideally 10 to 50+ people), with direct experience managing senior individual contributors and developing junior talent in complex enterprise software sales environments. Cloud Security Technical Depth + Executive Engagement: Hands-on experience with cloud computing, cybersecurity principles, and industry best practices. Multi-Segment GTM Experience: Demonstrated success adapting technical approaches across customer segments.