Skip to main content

Cleo (US)

Solutions Architect Associate

Chicago, Illinois, United States

Location
Chicago, Illinois, United States
Work
Hybrid
Employment
Not stated
Level
Lead / staff
Function
Sales
Pay
$75K – $85K a year (read from the ad)
Posted
11 days ago

Pay and the market here

The top of this role’s range, $85K a year, is 60% below the median of $210K for lead / staff sales jobs in Chicago (middle half $180K – $262K, 38 jobs that state pay).

589 sales jobs open in Chicago: 30% remote, 189 posted in the last 30 days.

Wondering how well you fit this one? OptiTalent Career checks each requirement against your own record, privately. About OptiTalent Career →

About the role

Major retailers keep tightening their supplier compliance requirements, and small and mid-market companies often lack the staff or systems to keep up. The Solutions Architect is the technical owner of the sales cycle for these customers, with defined, repeatable use cases such as trading partner compliance, EDI onboarding, and standard B2B supply chain connectivity. Working directly with the Sales team, the Solutions Architect runs discovery, scopes the solution, delivers the demo or POC, and hands off to Customer Success and Professional Services. The role suits someone who has worked in a customer-facing technical role, can run a deal independently, and can explain EDI and supply chain requirements clearly to business owners and IT managers. They draw on expertise across the team and organization, and use AI and other tools in their daily work to produce better outcomes for prospects and for Cleo.

Essential Duties & Responsibilities

  • Own the technical side of the sales cycle for standard use cases, from first discovery call through close, working alongside the Sales team
  • Conduct discovery sessions directly with prospective and existing customers to gather business and technology requirements, including identifying where AI-powered capabilities deliver the highest value
  • Explain the business case for Cleo to business owners, IT managers, and operations leads at small and mid-market organizations
  • Recommend and scope standard integration patterns for each prospect’s ERP or accounting system and trading partner requirements, using Cleo reference architectures and templates
  • Demonstrate the value of Cleo solutions through presentations and demonstrations on-site and remote
  • Complete the technical sections of RFI/RFPs and security questionnaires
  • Explain Cleo’s AI capabilities accurately in customer conversations
  • Apply AI tools across the sales cycle and in day-to-day work, from researching new concepts and understanding customer scenarios to sharpening discovery hypotheses and producing customer-facing assets and demonstration proof points
  • Manage a high volume of concurrent opportunities with short cycle times
  • Recognize when an opportunity falls outside the standard patterns, and flag it to Sales and Solutions leadership early so it is qualified and staffed correctly
  • Collaborate with Product Management to provide voice-of-the-customer feedback, influencing the roadmap based on patterns observed across prospect engagements
  • Partner with Customer Success and Professional Services to ensure smooth technical handoffs post-close, with clear documentation of customer architecture and agreed use cases
  • Contribute to the SA knowledge base by building reusable assets, demo scripts, and POC frameworks that scale pre-sales team capacity

Supply Chain Fluency

This role calls for working knowledge of how supply chains, trading partner compliance programs, and common systems of record operate, enough to advise a small or mid-market customer on standard use cases.

AI Fluency Competencies

The role has an AI dimension on two fronts: using AI tools to do pre-sales work faster and better, and explaining Cleo’s AI-powered capabilities to prospects.

  • Uses AI tools daily for discovery prep, call summaries, demo and POC builds, and customer documentation, and validates the output before it goes to a customer
  • Explains Cleo’s AI-powered capabilities accurately and credibly to technical and business audiences, and connects them to a customer’s specific problem
  • Knows the limits of the product’s AI capabilities and does not overstate them

Prerequisites

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems, or a related field, or equivalent relevant experience
  • 2+ years in a pre-sales, solutions engineering, implementation, technical support, or other customer-facing technical role within a B2B SaaS, iPaaS, EDI, or supply chain software environment
  • Working knowledge of EDI (X12 or EDIFACT) and common B2B protocols such as AS2 and SFTP
  • Understanding of core supply chain processes including Order-to-Cash and Procure-to-Pay
  • Working knowledge of REST/SOAP APIs and JSON/XML data structures
  • Demonstrated ability to run discovery calls, demonstrations, and POCs independently, and to manage the technical track of a sales cycle from start to close
  • Comfort using AI tools in daily work and explaining AI-powered product capabilities clearly to customers

Nice to Have

  • Hands-on experience with AI/ML-powered SaaS features, including LLM applications, agentic AI workflows, or intelligent automation
  • Familiarity with systems common at small and mid-market companies, such as accounting packages and mid-market ERPs, and with retail or distribution trading partner compliance programs

A few things we offer

  • Compensation: $75,000 to $85,000 + Bonus potential
  • Great Healthcare + Dental + Vision
  • Flexible PTO
  • Culture of support, encouraging Life-Work balance
  • 401k match
  • FSA and HSA options
  • Employee Assistance Program
  • Paid Parental Leave
  • Hybrid work environment
  • Accelerated title and salary growth potential
  • A fun and energetic work environment that makes you excited to go to work every day

We use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist in certain stages of our recruitment process, such as resume screening and candidate matching. These tools are designed to support fair and consistent evaluations. If you have questions about this process or would like to request an alternative assessment method, please contact us at hr@cleo.com.

Cleo Communications US, LLC is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Source

Posted by Cleo (US) on their own hiring page, job-boards.greenhouse.io. OptiTalent shows it as published, read 07 Nov 2026 11:59 UTC; the original is the reference.

View the original ad ↗

More at Cleo (US)

  • Cleo (US) · United States

    RemoteEntry level$80K – $100K a yearEngineering

    Analyzing data, integration requirements, and business processes needed to design, build, and implement customized solutions for Cleo clients; Working to become an expert on Cleo Integration Suite solution functionality and implementation procedures; Demonstrating excellent…

  • Product Designer

    2 weeks ago

    Cleo (US) · San Francisco, California, United States

    Senior$140K – $160K a yearDesign

    Partner with Product Management and Architecture to define experience strategy across key platform areas — shaping not just what we build, but how intelligent, AI-driven capabilities are surfaced and experienced.; Lead problem framing and user insight development for complex…

  • Product Manager

    4 weeks ago

    Cleo (US) · United States

    RemoteSenior$130K – $150K a yearProduct

    Own the product strategy and roadmap for supply chain orchestration, prioritizing by customer problem, business value, and fit with the platform.; Develop a deep understanding of workflows such as order-to-cash, order fulfillment, shipment execution, and supplier and customer…

  • Cleo (US) · United States

    RemoteLead / staff$160K – $180K a yearSecurity

    Own and mature Cleo’s SSDLC: security requirements, threat modeling, and design reviews for high-risk product changes, APIs, and integrations.; Run and tune SAST, SCA, secrets detection, container, and IaC scanning.; Build reusable secure patterns, reference implementations,…