Manager — Presales

Manager – Presales

Department: Presales / Solutions Consulting
Experience: 9–11 years
Location: India
Employment Type: Full-time
Reporting To: Head of Sales / Business Head

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Manager – Presales to lead our presales and solution consulting function for an AI-powered LegalTech platform.

The role will be responsible for translating customer requirements into compelling solution narratives, delivering high-quality product demonstrations, managing Proofs of Concept (POCs), and leading responses to enterprise RFPs, tenders and security questionnaires.

You will work closely with Sales, Product, Engineering and Customer Success to ensure that prospects understand the business and technical value of our platform and that qualified opportunities move efficiently from evaluation to closure.

You will also lead and mentor a team of 2 Solution Engineers and establish scalable presales processes, playbooks and standards.

Mission of the Role

Own the technical win rate across customer segments by improving demo quality, POC outcomes, solution positioning and enterprise technical evaluations.

Key Responsibilities

1. Presales & Solution Consulting

- Lead presales activities from qualified lead through technical evaluation and commercial handover.
- Conduct compelling product demonstrations tailored to customer use cases, industry and persona.
- Develop solution narratives, presentations, demonstration scenarios and technical-commercial proposals.
- Understand customer workflows, pain points and requirements and map them to the appropriate product capabilities.
- Participate in discovery calls and help Sales qualify opportunities from a technical and solution-fit perspective.
- Assign qualified opportunities/leads to the appropriate field sales team and coordinate closely through closure.
- Support Sales teams during strategic and enterprise opportunities.

2. POC & Technical Evaluation

- Define clear POC objectives, evaluation criteria, timelines and success metrics with prospects.
- Own POC governance from kickoff through final evaluation and decision.
- Ensure POCs demonstrate measurable customer value rather than simply product functionality.
- Identify risks, blockers and product gaps early and coordinate internally to resolve them.
- Analyse POC outcomes and develop learnings that can improve future demos and evaluations.

3. RFP, Tender & Enterprise Responses

- Own technical responses for RFPs, tenders, RFIs and enterprise questionnaires .
- Coordinate responses across Sales, Product, Engineering, Security and Legal teams.
- Lead responses to InfoSec, data privacy, security and DPDP-related questionnaires .
- Build and maintain a reusable knowledge base of standard technical, security and compliance responses.
- Ensure responses are accurate, compelling, differentiated and delivered within agreed timelines.

4. Presales Process & Enablement

- Standardise and continuously improve the demo library and segment-specific demo scripts .
- Develop presales playbooks, discovery frameworks, objection-handling guides and competitive battlecards.
- Train and enable Account Executives on product capabilities, positioning, competitive differentiation and common technical objections.
- Establish consistent standards for discovery, demonstrations, POCs and technical evaluations.
- Coach and mentor the Solution Engineering team.

5. Product & Market Feedback

- Capture recurring customer requirements, objections and product gaps from live opportunities.
- Provide prioritised, evidence-backed feedback to Product and Engineering with relevant deal context.
- Identify emerging customer requirements, competitive developments and market trends.
- Help Product teams understand which capabilities materially influence enterprise buying decisions.

6. Team Leadership

- Lead and mentor a team of 2 Solution Engineers .
- Allocate presales resources based on opportunity priority, complexity and probability of closure.
- Review opportunity pipelines, upcoming demos, POCs and RFP commitments.
- Set quality standards and coach the team on customer communication and solution storytelling.
- Build a scalable presales function capable of supporting increasing enterprise sales volumes.

Ideal Candidate Profile

We are looking for someone who combines strong presales expertise, consultative selling ability, technical understanding and domain orientation .

The ideal candidate would have:

- 9–11 years of experience in presales, solution consulting or solutions engineering.
- At least 2 years of experience managing or mentoring a presales / SE team .
- Experience in B2B SaaS, LegalTech, GRC, AI/ML, analytics, enterprise search or information-management products .
- Demonstrated experience owning enterprise RFPs, tenders and InfoSec/security responses .
- Experience managing customer POCs from definition through decision .
- Strong experience presenting SaaS products to senior business and technical stakeholders.
- Experience working with LLM, Generative AI, RAG or AI-powered search/research products is highly desirable.
- Exposure to LegalTech, tax-tech, compliance, GRC or professional-services technology is an advantage.
- A law degree, CA qualification or relevant domain expertise would be an added advantage.

Candidates from backgrounds such as LegalTech, GRC, enterprise SaaS, analytics, AI-search, consulting or professional-services technology would be particularly relevant.

Key Buyer / Customer Personas

The candidate should be comfortable engaging with both business and technical stakeholders, including:

- Heads of Knowledge Management
- Legal Heads / General Counsel
- Tax Heads
- Compliance Heads
- IT Heads
- CIO / CTO organisations
- Information Security teams
- Digital Transformation teams
- Product Champions
- Government / Court IT stakeholders
- Procurement and technical evaluation teams

Must-Have Skills

Core Presales Skills

- Consultative discovery
- Enterprise SaaS demonstrations
- Demo storytelling
- Solution architecture / solution mapping
- POC planning and governance
- RFP / RFI / tender response management
- Technical proposal writing
- Enterprise stakeholder management

Technical & Domain Skills

- Understanding of SaaS architecture and integrations
- Familiarity with AI/ML and LLM / RAG concepts
- Ability to explain technical concepts to non-technical audiences
- Understanding of data privacy and enterprise security requirements
- Familiarity with DPDP, InfoSec and security questionnaires
- Ability to understand and communicate LegalTech / compliance workflows

Leadership Skills

- Team leadership and mentoring
- Cross-functional coordination
- Opportunity prioritisation
- Strong written and verbal communication
- Structured problem solving
- Commercial awareness

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The success of the role will be measured through:

- Technical Win Rate – percentage of qualified opportunities won after technical evaluation.
- POC Success Rate – percentage of POCs achieving agreed success criteria and progressing toward closure.
- Demo Effectiveness / Demo NPS – quality and customer feedback on product demonstrations.
- RFP / Tender Turnaround Time – adherence to committed response timelines.
- RFP Technical Win Rate – success rate of opportunities involving technical/RFP evaluation.
- Presales Coverage – percentage of qualified opportunities receiving appropriate presales support.
- Sales Enablement Coverage – completion and adoption of product, competitive and objection-handling training by the Sales team.
- Presales Productivity – efficient utilisation of Solution Engineering resources.
- Product Feedback Quality – actionable product insights generated from customer evaluations.
- Team Performance – performance, capability development and productivity of the Solution Engineering team.

What Success Looks Like

Within the first 6–12 months, the Manager – Presales should have:

- Established a structured presales operating process .
- Built a standardised and continuously improving demo library .
- Introduced a consistent POC framework and success-criteria methodology .
- Created reusable RFP, tender and security-response repositories .
- Improved the quality and consistency of enterprise product demonstrations.
- Established regular Sales–Presales–Product feedback loops .
- Improved technical conversion and POC-to-closure rates.
- Built a capable and scalable Solution Engineering team .
- Enabled Account Executives to independently handle common product, technical and competitive conversations.

Why Join Us?

You will have the opportunity to shape the presales function of an AI-powered LegalTech platform , work directly with enterprise and institutional customers, and influence both the sales process and the evolution of the product.

This is a high-impact role for someone who enjoys operating at the intersection of AI, technology, business, legal/compliance workflows and enterprise sales .