Pre-Sales
Solutions Consultant recruitment
Search for pre-sales hires whose weight sits in business process, configuration and value framing rather than deep engineering.
300+
GTM placements over five years
40 / 60
Split of placements across the US and EMEA
25%
Of placements at executive-search level
10 days
Average to identify the ideal candidate after intake
Solutions Consultant and Solutions Engineer are used interchangeably by some companies and to mean genuinely different things by others. We do not pretend there is an industry-wide definition.
What is consistent is the axis underneath the titles: how much of the role is engineering depth, and how much is business process, configuration and value articulation. Getting that ratio explicit at intake matters more than the title on the requisition.
The distinction as most companies use it
Where both titles exist in one organisation, Solutions Consultants typically own the business-facing half of the evaluation: current-state process mapping, configuration against that process, commercial value cases and executive-facing presentations. Solutions Engineers own the technical half: architecture, integration, data and bespoke proof-of-concept work.
In smaller companies one person does both, and the title chosen usually reflects the founder's background more than the job. We calibrate the search to the work described, not the label.
What we screen for
- Process fluency
- Can map how a buyer works today and show precisely where the product changes it.
- Value articulation
- Builds a business case a finance stakeholder will accept, not a feature comparison.
- Configuration ability
- Comfortable configuring, scripting or shaping the product without waiting on engineering.
- Executive presence
- Holds a room of senior stakeholders and handles objection under pressure.
- Domain knowledge
- Where the product is vertical, credibility in that industry's language and constraints.
Stage and structure
Below roughly Series B, a Solutions Consultant hire needs to accept technical work outside a clean remit — there is no SE to hand the integration question to. Candidates from large vendors with a strict division of labour often find that uncomfortable.
As the organisation grows, the role narrows and specialises, and vertical depth or a specific evaluation methodology becomes the differentiator.
Assessment
The core exercise is a value case rather than a technical deep dive: given a realistic customer situation, the candidate defines the current process, the intervention, the measurable outcome and the risks. It exposes candidates who present features fluently but cannot connect them to a commercial consequence.
Proof
Unitary AI
Five placements in five months for Unitary AI while its commercial functions were being established.
Read the case study- 5
- Placements
- 5 months
- Elapsed across the programme
Selected clients
- Cursor
- Planhat
- Branch
- Unitary AI
- Sweep
- Anima Health
- FullStory
- Acoustic
- Optimizely
- VertoFX
Common questions
- Is a Solutions Consultant more junior than a Solutions Engineer?
- No. They are different weightings of the same pre-sales problem, and seniority is set by scope and deal complexity rather than by which of the two titles a company uses.
- Which title should we advertise?
- Use the one that matches the technical depth you genuinely need, because candidates self-select strongly on it. Advertising Solutions Engineer for a process-led role attracts engineers who will find the work shallow, and the reverse loses you the deep technical pool.
Ready to talk about the hire?
Tell us the roles, the markets and the stage. You will get a straight answer on whether we are the right partner, and a market view either way.