Sales Engineer
Location
- Must reside in the Greater Los Angeles area or Northern Orange County.
- Regular in-person collaboration is encouraged to support mentorship, professional development, team culture, and delivery excellence.
- Must be available for in-person customer meetings and occasional visits to our San Diego office, as needed.
Position Summary
The Sales Engineer serves as the technical quarterback for customer opportunities, combining strong technical expertise with a consultative approach to solving business challenges. Working closely with Account Executives, delivery teams, and technology partners, this role designs solutions that address customer pain points and deliver measurable business value.
The ideal candidate brings at least one year of successful customer-facing Sales Engineer experience, supported by 10 or more years in hands-on technical roles such as Solution Architect, Technical Architect, billable technical engineer, technical consultant, or a comparable technology position. This combination provides the technical depth and practical delivery experience necessary to develop credible, implementable recommendations across a diverse portfolio of technology solutions.
A key responsibility of this role is understanding customer objectives, validating architectures, developing solution recommendations, creating Bills of Materials (BOMs), supporting professional services scoping efforts, and coordinating the appropriate technical resources throughout the sales process. The Sales Engineer must understand both the technical and business dimensions of customer engagements, ensuring proposed solutions are practical, technically sound, and aligned with customer needs.
This role sits at the intersection of sales, technical engineering, and professional services, translating complex technical requirements into meaningful business outcomes. Success requires strong communication skills, technical credibility, business acumen, responsiveness, and the ability to build trust with customers, partners, and internal teams.
Reporting to the Sales Engineering Team Leader, this role offers opportunities to further develop technical and business expertise across a diverse portfolio of technology solutions and professional services.
Success in this role is reflected in effective customer discovery, technically sound and implementable solutions, trusted customer relationships, strong collaboration with sales and delivery teams, and the ability to advance customer opportunities while delivering measurable business value.
Ideal Candidate
The ideal candidate combines substantial hands-on technical experience with the business acumen and communication skills necessary to serve as a trusted advisor to customers. They understand how technologies work together, how technical decisions impact business outcomes, and how to develop practical solutions that can be successfully implemented.
They are:
- Technically credible, with extensive hands-on engineering, architecture, or consulting experience across multiple technology disciplines.
- Consultative and customer-focused, with a strong ability to uncover business challenges through thoughtful discovery and active listening.
- Comfortable communicating complex technical concepts to both technical and non-technical audiences.
- Skilled at translating customer objectives into practical, implementable technology recommendations.
- Experienced in building trusted relationships with customers, partners, and internal teams.
- Able to identify when specialized expertise is needed and coordinate the appropriate resources.
- Responsive, organized, and committed to following through on commitments.
- Curious, adaptable, and committed to continuous learning and professional development.
- Motivated by helping customers achieve meaningful business outcomes while advancing sales opportunities.
What You Bring
Qualifications & Key Skills
Required
- Minimum of one year of proven customer-facing Sales Engineer experience in a technology-focused organization.
- At least 10 years of hands-on technical experience as a Solution Architect, Technical Architect, billable technical engineer, technical consultant, or in a comparable technology role.
- Demonstrated experience designing, validating, implementing, or supporting technology solutions in production customer environments.
- Experience translating customer business and technical requirements into practical, implementable solution recommendations.
- Demonstrated ability to identify customer challenges and align technology solutions with desired business outcomes.
- Experience conducting customer discovery meetings and gathering technical and business requirements.
- Strong understanding of solution architecture principles, technology integration, and implementation considerations.
- Experience collaborating across sales, service delivery, partner, and distribution organizations.
- Excellent presentation, communication, and relationship-building skills, with the ability to engage engineers, architects, executives, and business decision-makers.
- Strong organizational and project coordination abilities, with proven experience managing multiple opportunities simultaneously.
- Ability to quickly learn new technologies and understand their business applications.
Preferred
- Hands-on technical experience across multiple technology disciplines, particularly networking and cybersecurity.
- Experience developing Bills of Materials (BOMs), solution proposals, architecture documentation, and technical recommendations.
- Familiarity with professional services scoping and Statement of Work (SOW) development.
- Experience collaborating with technology vendors and distribution partners.
- Experience supporting cloud, cybersecurity, networking, infrastructure, collaboration, data protection, AI, or modern workplace solutions.
- Experience leading or contributing to customer workshops, technical demonstrations, assessments, or proof-of-concept engagements.
- Relevant architecture, engineering, cloud, cybersecurity, networking, or other technical certifications from leading technology vendors.
- Experience supporting complex or multi-technology customer environments.
- Experience mentoring engineers, consultants, or other technical professionals.
Key Responsibilities
Customer Discovery & Business Value Consulting
- Conduct discovery sessions to understand customer business objectives, operational challenges, technology requirements, and strategic initiatives.
- Identify customer pain points and develop solution recommendations that address both technical and business needs.
- Clearly articulate how technology solutions and professional services deliver business value, improve operations, reduce risk, increase efficiency, and support organizational goals.
- Help customers identify opportunities to use AI to improve productivity, decision-making, customer experience, operational efficiency, and competitive differentiation.
- Build trusted-advisor relationships with technical, business, and executive stakeholders.
- Present complex technical concepts clearly and compellingly to diverse audiences.
Solution Design & Architecture
- Develop solution recommendations that align customer requirements with available technologies and professional services.
- Apply substantial hands-on technical experience to assess solution feasibility, identify risks, and recommend practical implementation approaches.
- Collaborate with internal architects, delivery engineers, technology partners, and distribution organizations to validate solution architectures and confirm technical feasibility.
- Assist in developing technical proposals, solution designs, presentations, and customer-facing documentation.
- Create and maintain accurate Bills of Materials (BOMs) and support pricing and configuration activities.
- Ensure proposed solutions align with customer objectives, implementation requirements, technical standards, and industry best practices.
- Identify technical assumptions, dependencies, constraints, and risks that could affect implementation or customer outcomes.
Sales Support & Opportunity Management
- Partner with Account Executives throughout the sales cycle to advance opportunities from discovery through closure.
- Act as the primary technical resource during customer sales engagements.
- Translate customer requirements into credible, technically sound solution recommendations.
- Maintain momentum throughout opportunities by promptly following up on commitments, technical requests, and action items.
- Deliver timely, clear, concise, and accurate communication to customers, partners, and internal stakeholders.
- Support customer workshops, demonstrations, technical reviews, proof-of-concept engagements, and solution presentations.
Resource Coordination
- Identify when specialized expertise is required to strengthen customer confidence and advance sales opportunities.
- Engage internal delivery engineers, architects, subject-matter experts, and technology partners in a timely manner.
- Coordinate subject-matter expertise to address customer concerns, validate design decisions, and build trust throughout the sales process.
- Facilitate collaboration among technical and non-technical stakeholders to ensure alignment and successful sales outcomes.
- Ensure customers receive appropriate technical guidance and support throughout the sales process.
Professional Services Collaboration
- Work closely with delivery teams to ensure proposed solutions can be successfully implemented, supported, and operated.
- Collaborate with engineers and architects to define project scope, assumptions, deliverables, dependencies, timelines, and customer expectations.
- Assist in developing Statements of Work for infrastructure, cloud, cybersecurity, AI, and advisory service engagements.
- Apply practical delivery experience to identify potential implementation risks, scope gaps, and resource requirements before customer commitments are finalized.
- Support seamless transitions from sales to implementation teams.
- Provide sufficient technical and customer context to help delivery teams execute successfully.
Partner & Distributor Engagement
- Develop and maintain productive relationships with technology partners and distribution organizations.
- Work with partners to understand evolving technologies, programs, product roadmaps, and solution capabilities.
- Leverage partner resources to validate designs, support customer engagements, and improve overall solution quality.
- Stay informed on emerging technologies and industry trends that create new opportunities for customers.
What Success Looks Like
Successful Sales Engineers:
- Serve as trusted technical advisors who understand both the technical and business dimensions of customer engagements.
- Consistently uncover customer pain points and translate business objectives into practical, technically sound solutions.
- Apply hands-on engineering experience to develop credible recommendations that delivery teams can successfully implement.
- Build strong relationships with customers, Account Executives, delivery teams, and technology partners.
- Effectively communicate complex technical concepts and business value to diverse audiences.
- Demonstrate sound technical judgment, knowing when to lead technical discussions and when to engage specialized expertise.
- Maintain a strong sense of urgency, responsiveness, and follow-through to advance customer opportunities.
- Help customers achieve measurable business outcomes while supporting sales growth and long-term customer relationships.
- Continuously expand their technical expertise and contribute to the development of Bird Rock Systems' sales engineering capabilities.
Compensation
- Compensation Range: $110,000 - $160,000
- The above represents the expected compensation range for this job requisition. Ultimately, in determining pay, we'll consider location, experience, and other job-related factors.
Our compensation structure is designed to recognize performance, drive growth, and align personal success with company success. When you contribute to the company's success, you
