Product Solutions Architect, Tekion
Cloud-native platform for the automotive retail industry
Job no longer available
Cloud-native platform for the automotive retail industry
1001+ employees
Job no longer available
1001+ employees
Company mission
To build the world's best business applications in the cloud.
Role
Who you are
- 5+ years of experience as Solutions Architect or Lead Product Manager
- Must have experience in the following areas:
- Digital retail experience / Retail
- Inventory / data feeds
- Website Platforms
- Desking / F&I solutions
- Understand the challenges OEMs will face working with Dealers and how to provide superior program outcomes and customer set
- Understanding of Technology works and integrations workflow
- Must be able to present solutions and effectively communicate with OEM’s
- Knowledge of the entire purchasing process for buying online
- Experience with Web platforms from the OEM Website from Tier 1 into Dealer Website Tier 3
Desirable
- Product Management in SaaS
- Dealership operations & Automotive background
- Automotive OEM background
What the job involves
- Provide consulting services regarding problems based on understanding problem OEM problem between OEM and Dealer
- Provide design meeting OEM needs from Tier 1 to Tier 3 experience
- Data services for OEMs to connect OEM and Dealer data
- Analytics and Insights for OEMs that solve business needs and use cases
- Solutions Architecture across Data and Platform and Integrations with OEM platforms
- Ability to present AEC as a solution, especially with Dealer Systems, understands dealership operations and business challenges
- Great listening skills with a curious mind; soft skills with OEMs; ability to work with difficult people who do not share vision with Tekion or broader automotive market (e.g. old school thinking)
- Capability to work with OEMs; ability to ask specific questions to better understand their business
- Understands automotive industry, and specifically excellent understanding of Dealer Retail business from a Software perspective (Digital Retail, Online Chat, Negotiations, F&I, Desking, CRM,
- Brainstorm and collaborate solutions with OEMs and bring OEM teams together to agree upon a mutually beneficial solution
- Document solutions via Confluence, Workflows, Diagrams connecting services
- Research tools with Dealers and Online to understand potentially how things can work together
- Understands data or can learn about data feeds with 3rd Parties like HomeNet, vAuto, STAR data standards between DMS and OEMs, third party data providers
- Good problem solving skills; able to listen to OEM problem statement, and leverage knowledge of dealer business to provide solution
- Stay up-to-date with Product Area
- Ability to do product research / competitive analysis, provide feedback back to Product
- Work on creating prototypes with design team to bring vision to life
- Can talk about APIs and Data
Otta's take
Theo Margolius
COO of Otta
Car dealerships suffer from an inefficiency problem. The paperwork and administration required to complete a sale requires dealers to manage a disjointed set of various software applications. Tekion is offering an enticing remedy - a cloud-based automative retail system that integrates the various software applications in a single infrastructure.
Competition has been strong, with rivals CDK Global and Reynolds & Reynolds offering a competitive raft of features, and benefitting from strong prior relationships with dealerships.
Tekion, however, has nevertheless secured customers for the software in 28 states - likely in part due to the efficiency of partnering with a single growing service as opposed to a disparate spread. The company is sparking interest from the right places too, with partners including GMC, Chrysler, and Chevrolet.
If the founders can leverage their experience at Tesla in improving efficiency, the system could prove a highly competitive newcomer with real potential for global spread. A reduction in processing time and paperwork is a hard proposition for dealerships to refuse.
Insights
Company
Funding (last 2 of 6 rounds)
Jul 2024
$200m
GROWTH EQUITY VC
Oct 2021
$250m
SERIES D
Total funding: $635.1m
Company benefits
- Competitive compensation and generous stock options
- 100% employer-paid top-of-the-line medical, dental and vision coverage
- Great benefits including unlimited PTO, parental leave and free snacks and beverages
- The opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds from the Silicon Valley’s most dominant and successful companies
- Be part of an early stage, hyper-growth startup with the opportunity to grow and prosper
- Work on the latest and coolest technologies – everything is home-grown and built ground-up
- Dynamic work environment with a strong sense of community and collaboration
- Open and transparent culture that encourages innovation, rewards performance and discourages hierarchy
- Exciting opportunities for career growth and development
Company values
- Creativity
- Authenticity
- Integrity
- Collaboration
- Empathy
- Fearlessness
Company HQ
Pleasanton, CA
Founders
Jay Vijayan
(CEO)They started their career at Oracle, where they spent over 7 years in Management before spending 4 at VMware. They then worked at Tesla for 4 years, leaving their position as CIO to found Tekion in February 2016.
Guru Sankararaman
(COO)After working as a Chief Architect at Cisco, they joined Tesla for 4 years. Initially they served as Director of Information Technology and then later became VP of Information Technology. Left this role to co-found Tekion in 2016.
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