Show Notes
Ava's team kept duct-taping workarounds onto a bought POC platform until one SE built the tool she actually wanted in an afternoon. Nate pushes back on skipping constraints, and together they work out how to pair unconstrained dreaming with a named brake so build ideas don't turn into distractions.
More from Leading PreSales | The Solution Engineering Leadership Show
Ava watched one of her SEs go from webinar idea to live landing page before lunch, work that once took her weeks of cross-team waiting. Nate pushes back on brand risk, shadow IT and customer legal. Together they work out which dependencies AI can remove and which ones are real.
Ava's SE brought a business case built on hours saved times an hourly rate, but the people were still on the payroll after go-live. Nate and Ava work out how to coach SEs to turn freed capacity into revenue, error cost, or avoided hiring that finance will actually believe.
Nate reads a Head of SE posting that makes the new leader responsible for training, tools and feedback — then funds it with €1,000 a year, less than the same company gives people for donating to open-source projects. He and Ava dig into why that gap is read as a culture signal, and what to do before pay transparency makes every line comparable.
Nate breaks down a second-line Head of Solution Engineering ad that quietly bundles five go-to-market motions, post-sales and partner building into one job. He and Ava work out how to scope-test a mandate like that — as the candidate and as the hiring manager.
Nate tears apart a publicly posted Head of Solution Engineering ad from a fast-growing automation vendor — two things it does brilliantly, two it gets badly wrong. Ava pushes back on publishing comp bands and on asking candidates to sign up for a number before they know the territory.