Principal Solutions Consultant — Managed Services (India)

Principal Solutions Consultant — Managed Services (India)

Customer Success | Remote | 6+ years

About the company

Keka is a modern people platform for growing enterprises. HR, payroll and talent live in one core system, so teams spend less time on admin and more time on their people. More than 12,500 companies trust Keka, from fast-growing small businesses to large enterprises and global companies with teams across borders.

We build software the way HR actually works. It feels human, sets up in days instead of months, and has AI built into every part of HR. With customers across India, the US and the Middle East, our sales team is growing fast to keep up. That is where this role comes in.

About the role

Solutioning is your primary responsibility. You are the India country expert who owns Payroll / Statutory / Time & Attendance depth for the market. You sit in prospect calls, create need for MS, defend and shape scope, and push deals through to closure. You are not a passive expert, you carry the deal.

Beyond Solutioning, you partner across three functions to make sure the motion holds together - GTM (support and enable Sales), Product (bridge to R&D on functional gaps), and Delivery (track project health post-signature). You do not execute delivery or own partnerships, those live elsewhere. Your job is to close deals and make sure closed deals stay healthy.

What you'll doPrimary Responsibility - SolutioningCountry Expertise

• Statutory framework depth. EPF (12% + 12%), ESI (3.25% + 0.75%), state-wise Professional Tax (KA/MH/WB/TS/AP/TN/GJ/KL/MP/OR), LWF (applicable states), TDS Section 192 across regimes (old vs new), Gratuity, Bonus. Filing calendars - monthly ECR + challan + TRRN (by 15th), TDS challan (by 7th), Form 24Q quarterly, Form 16 by June 15, Form 12BA annual.
• Payroll components. Gross-to-net mechanics, salary structures, reimbursements, garnishments, F&F settlements, prior-vendor cleanup patterns.
• Time & Attendance. Attendance-to-payroll pipelines, overtime rules, PTO / leave policy design, statutory paid leave.
• Compliance rhythm. Notice triage cadence, audit prep, peak-load moments (year-end, statutory season) that customers panic about.

Sales-Call presence

• Create need. Walk a prospect through their own pain in ways they had not articulated. Turn "we already do payroll" into "we already lose Ops leaders to payroll."
• Defend and shape scope. Hold the SKU line where it matters, concede where it wins the deal. Know the difference cold.
• Carry the technical narrative from first-call to signed MSA. RFP responses, security questionnaires, statutory Q&A, delivery walk-throughs.
• Competitive positioning. Displacement plays against ADP India, greytHR, Zoho Payroll, Ramco, Neeyamo, Darwinbox, Zeta, and enterprise incumbents like SAP SuccessFactors + PeopleStrong — know each competitor's weak spots cold.

GTM - Support and enable

• Enable Sales (Farming + Hunting) with talk tracks, objection handling, and country-specific scope walkthroughs, delivered via the Enablement team.
• Contribute to MS content the Marketing team produces: pitch decks, scope-by-SKU 2-pagers, displacement battlecards, case studies. Ensure the content is factually correct and prospect-tested.
• Feed back what is landing and what is not from prospect calls, so content and positioning evolve on a fast cadence.

Product - bridge, not build

• Translate recurring prospect and delivery pain into structured Product requirements (not anecdotes).
• Track those requirements through Product's roadmap. When a Product gap blocks an MS deal, pull it forward with a data-backed case.
• When Product ships something useful, get it into pitch decks and battlecards within a week.

Delivery - track, not execute

• Monitor delivery health on the accounts you closed, cycle accuracy, SLA adherence, escalations, renewal signals.
• Flag risks to Delivery leads early, hand off cleanly and stay available as escalation backup.
• Own the debrief when a deal closes, what did we sell, what does Delivery need to deliver, where are the known risks.

What you'll bring

• Deep payroll expertise for India. You can walk any prospect through statutory framework, filing calendars, and edge cases without notes.
• 6+ years in HR Tech, payroll, or global employer-of-record. Ideally split between hands-on delivery and client-facing / commercial roles. Companies like Keka, Darwinbox, greytHR, Zoho Payroll, RazorpayX Payroll, Zeta, Ramco, springworks, Neeyamo (India) are the right shape of pedigree.
• Sales-call fluency. You have sat in front of CHROs, CFOs, and Heads of People and closed. You know when to push and when to concede scope.
• Strong communication, written and verbal. Comfortable running executive-level prospect calls.
• Numeracy and structured thinking. Comfortable with pricing math and SKU logic; can build your own analysis when the ask is ambiguous.