Senior Pre-Sales Solutions Architect – AI Agent & Workload Security

Tigera—the pioneer behind Calico and Lynx—is defining the future of AI agent security, workload governance, and cloud-native networking. As autonomous AI agents, LLM frameworks, and microservices proliferate across enterprise infrastructure, Tigera delivers the deep visibility, runtime protection, and eBPF-driven enforcement control required to secure the next generation of computing. 

From modern cloud-native architectures to cutting-edge AI agent ecosystems, our technology safeguards over 1 million Kubernetes clusters across multicloud and hybrid environments. Trusted by world-class innovation leaders—including NVIDIA, Royal Bank of Canada, Bloomberg, Chipotle, GoDaddy, and Upwork—we empower enterprises to build, scale, and innovate with AI safely and without compromise. 

At Tigera, our customers are the heroes of our story. We aim high, move fast, foster continuous learning, and build a high-trust, highly collaborative environment where every voice shapes the future of AI security. If you are looking to help make a substantial impact, and our values and products align with your vision of your career growth, we want to hear from you!

The Opportunity

AI agents are reaching production faster than security teams can govern them, and Lynx is how we help them do it. We’re hiring a Principal Solutions Architect in Vancouver to act as the number two for Lynx presales across North America.

This is a senior role with direct influence on where the product and the business go. You’ll run the most important Lynx deals in the region, work closely with our VP of PM on the roadmap, and be the person customers, partners and our own sales team turn to when they want to understand what Lynx does and why it matters. The category is still being defined, and so is how we sell into it, so you’ll help shape both.

This role is ideal for a forward-thinking pre-sales professional or platform/security engineer eager to spearhead AI agent security while the category is being defined. You don’t need to be an AI expert on day one, if you bring strong Kubernetes and application security foundations along with a passion for how AI systems are built, we will help you build the required expertise. 

The pay range for this role is CA$150-170k OTE. It will be hybrid out of our office in Vancouver. 

What You Will Do

• Technical Sales Leadership: Drive end-to-end technical evaluation wins across key Lynx accounts in North America—guiding engagements from early discovery and proof-of-concept validation through final execution with high win conversion rates.
• Discovery & Problem Solving: Rapidly uncover root enterprise challenges, distinguishing core business requirements from initial requests to engineer tailored, impactful solution architectures.
• Objection Handling: Convert prospect pushback into actionable criteria by accurately diagnosing functional gaps, educational needs, or strategic deal alignment.
• Resource & Scope Governance: Qualify engagements early to safeguard product roadmaps and engineering bandwidth, gracefully refocusing or disengaging from unqualified prospects.
• Product & CTO Collaboration: Partner directly with product management and executive leadership to influence product strategy using prioritized, real-world field insights and deal evidence.
• Regional Technical Ownership: Serve as the primary technical lead for Lynx in North America, establishing gold-standard PoC benchmarks while mentoring account executives and solutions engineers.
• Thought Leadership & Evangelism: Champion Lynx across industry events, analyst briefings, and community workshops, delivering compelling content on securing modern AI workloads.
• Sales Enablement Assets: Design scalable reference architectures, reusable demonstration environments, and PoC execution frameworks for global field enablement.
• RFP & Security Validation: Author high-impact technical responses for complex RFPs, vendor assessments, and enterprise security evaluations.
• Strategic Advisory: Act as a trusted advisor to major Calico enterprise clients, helping them integrate Lynx into their broader AI adoption strategies.
• Travel Expectation: Willingness to travel up to 25% across North America for key customer meetings and industry conferences.

What You Bring

• Proven Pre-Sales Track Record: At least 8 years in customer-facing technical positions (e.g., Solutions Architect, Field CTO, Sales Engineer), with a strong history of closing complex enterprise infrastructure and security deals.
• Early-Stage Category Creation: Background serving as a founding or pioneer SA for a novel technology, building value propositions, demonstration kits, and evaluation frameworks from the ground up.
• Discovery & Deal Qualification: Sharp strategic judgment to differentiate high-intent buyers from low-value opportunities, along with the discipline to disengage when appropriate.
• Roadmap Influence & Leadership Alignment: Ability to partner with product managers and executives to guide product strategy, holding technical credibility to challenge both prospective clients and internal teams.
• Kubernetes & Container Expertise: Deep practical knowledge of container orchestration, capable of constructing environments and troubleshooting active environments live in customer settings.
• Cloud & Application Security Fundamentals: Firm foundation in network policies, Zero Trust frameworks, workload identity mechanisms, and cloud platform controls.
• Identity Architecture Knowledge: Technical understanding of authentication protocols, including mTLS, OIDC, OAuth 2.0, and JWT generation or verification.
• Public Cloud Proficiency: Direct engineering experience operating within major cloud environments such as GCP, Azure, or AWS.
• AI Framework Exposure: Understanding of agentic AI systems and development kits (e.g., LangGraph, LangChain, Model Context Protocol, CrewAI, OpenAI Agents SDK).
• Enterprise Methodology & Business Value: Mastery of MEDDPICC sales execution, translating technical differentiation directly into strategic business priorities for CIOs and CISOs.
• Public Presentation & Communication: Poised speaker skilled in presenting technical concepts to practitioner engineers, executive leaders, and industry conference delegates.
• Kubernetes and containers: Hands-on enough to build your own demo and PoC environments, and to work through issues with a customer’s platform team without losing the room.

Nice to Have (Bonus Points)

• Hands-on experience building or securing AI agents (e.g. LangChain, CrewAI, MCP servers)
• Familiarity with workload identity (SPIFFE/SPIRE) or service meshes
• Experience with Calico, Cilium, OpenShift or eBPF
• A track record of public speaking or published technical content

Why Join Tigera?

• Shape a new category. AI agent security is still being defined. You’ll help decide how Lynx is positioned, sold and built, not just run someone else’s playbook.
• Direct line to the CTO. What you learn from customers goes straight into roadmap decisions, and you’ll be in the room when they’re made.
• Build the North America motion. As the senior Lynx presales voice in the region, you’ll set the standard for discovery, demos and PoCs that others follow.
• Work on hard problems with people who know the space. eBPF, Kubernetes and AI agent security, alongside the team behind Calico, which runs on over a million clusters.
• Competitive total rewards. Strong base salary, performance-driven variable compensation, company equity, and premium health coverage designed for senior talent.

With offices in San Francisco, San Jose, Vancouver (Canada), Cork (Ireland), and London (England), we have a thriving team of diverse individuals from all over the world. We believe in a collaborative, flexible work environment based on respect for, and commitment from, every employee. We also offer a competitive compensation package along with full health, vision, and dental benefits. These benefits, coupled with an amazing team of individuals who believe in our mission and value openness, collaboration, and teamwork, make Tigera an awesome place to work.