Advanced Presales Specialist

Introduction: A Career at HARMAN Automotive

We’re a global, multi-disciplinary team that’s putting the innovative power of technology to work and transforming tomorrow. At HARMAN Automotive, we give you the keys to fast-track your career.

• Engineer audio systems and integrated technology platforms that augment the driving experience
• Combine ingenuity, in-depth research, and a spirit of collaboration with design and engineering excellence
• Advance in-vehicle infotainment, safety, efficiency, and enjoyment

About the Role

HARMAN Automotive Engineering Services is seeking a structured, customer-focused presales professional to support and lead mid-sized pursuits across the automotive software and engineering lifecycle. The role translates customer needs into differentiated solution narratives, coordinates cross-functional bid teams, and develops high-quality proposals, presentations, estimates, and reusable go-to-market assets. The candidate will also use approved AI tools to accelerate research, requirement analysis, content development and knowledge reuse, while maintaining human accountability for accuracy, confidentiality and customer relevance.

What You Will Do

·  Pursuit and bid management: Own or coordinate RFIs, RFQs, RFPs and proactive proposals from qualification through submission, including response plan, compliance matrix, workback schedule, reviews, approvals and final packaging.

·  Customer requirement analysis: Interpret business and technical requirements, clarify scope and assumptions, identify dependencies and risks, and convert inputs into a clear response strategy.

·  Solution orchestration: Work with Sales, Account Management, domain and solution teams, Delivery, Finance, Legal, HR and partners to build an integrated technical, delivery and commercial response.

·  Proposal story and differentiation: Develop executive summaries, win themes, value propositions, solution narratives, case-study mapping, competitive positioning and evidence-based differentiators.

·  Commercial support: Coordinate effort estimates, staffing and location models, pricing inputs, rate cards, assumptions and approval workflows with Delivery and Finance. Maintain version and change control.

·  Review governance: Plan and facilitate solution, commercial, risk and leadership reviews; track actions to closure and ensure compliance with internal bid and approval processes.

·  Presentations and workshops: Create customer-ready pitch decks and support discovery workshops, solution walkthroughs, demos, orals and internal deal reviews.

·  Market and account insight: Research customer strategy, technology trends, competitors and buying context to develop point-of-view content and improve pursuit relevance.

·  Knowledge management: Maintain proposal artifacts, case studies, credentials, templates, boilerplate content and lessons learned; improve reuse, quality and turnaround time.

·  Continuous improvement: Track bid metrics and retrospective actions, and contribute to standard playbooks, automation and AI-assisted content development with appropriate human review.

What You Need to Be Successful

The successful candidate should be able to position services across several of the following areas, while engaging specialists for detailed solution ownership:

·       Software-defined vehicle and vehicle E/E architecture

·       Digital cockpit, infotainment, HMI and connected vehicle

·       ADAS / autonomous driving engineering and validation

·       Cloud, data platforms, AI/ML and analytics

·       Embedded software, AUTOSAR, middleware and cybersecurity

·       Test automation, verification and validation, DevOps / CI-CD and digital engineering

·       Application development, modernization, support and managed services

Bonus Points if You Have

AI-enabled presales practices

·       AI-assisted research and discovery: Use approved enterprise AI tools to synthesize customer, account, market and technology inputs; develop structured hypotheses and prepare sharper discovery questions.

·       Requirement and RFP analysis: Apply AI to summarize bid documents, extract obligations, create first-pass compliance matrices, identify ambiguities and surface risks, assumptions and dependencies for expert validation.

·       Proposal and presentation acceleration: Use generative AI to develop first drafts, alternative storylines, executive-summary options, win-theme language and presentation structures, followed by rigorous human review and tailoring.

·       Knowledge reuse: Improve retrieval and adaptation of case studies, credentials, reusable proposal content and lessons learned using Copilot or equivalent enterprise-approved tools.

·       Quality and governance: Validate factual accuracy, citations, calculations and customer-specific claims; protect confidential, personal and intellectual-property information; and comply with HARMAN policies and approved-tool requirements.

·       Automation mindset: Identify repeatable presales activities that can be simplified through Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Automate, approved agents or structured templates without weakening review controls.

Required experience and qualifications

·       5-6 years of total experience, with meaningful experience in presales, bid management, solution consulting, sales enablement or proposal management in engineering, IT or digital services.

·       Experience contributing to complete proposal cycles, including planning, content coordination, solution documentation, estimation support, reviews and submission.

·       Working knowledge of automotive software, embedded systems, digital engineering, cloud/data/AI, test and validation, or adjacent engineering-services domains.

·       Ability to synthesize technical and commercial inputs into concise, persuasive customer-facing content.

·       Practical AI literacy: ability to use enterprise generative AI responsibly for research, analysis, drafting and knowledge retrieval, with strong prompting, verification and data-handling discipline.

·       Strong PowerPoint, Word and Excel skills; comfortable working with structured content repositories and collaboration tools.

·       Clear written and verbal communication, stakeholder management, facilitation and project-management skills.

·       Ability to manage multiple deadlines and work effectively with globally distributed, cross-functional teams.

·       Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Information Technology, Business, or a related discipline.

What Makes You Eligible

·       Prior exposure to automotive OEMs, Tier-1 suppliers or mobility technology companies.

·       Exposure to commercial models such as time and material, fixed price, managed capacity, outcome-based or milestone-based engagements.

·       Experience with competitive analysis, account research, case-study development, demos or customer workshops.

·       Comfort using generative AI or automation tools to accelerate research and drafting while protecting confidential information and validating accuracy.

What We Offer

• Access to employee discounts on world-class products (JBL, HARMAN Kardon, AKG, and more)
• A hybrid work environment that balances flexibility with in-person collaboration, with most office-based roles onsite three days a week.
• Extensive training opportunities through our own HARMAN University
• Competitive wellness benefits
• Tuition reimbursement
• “Be Brilliant” employee recognition and rewards program
• An inclusive and diverse work environment that fosters and encourages professional and personal development