Sales Engineer at FirstLight in Albany, NY

FirstLight is seeking an experienced and success oriented Sales Engineer to support FirstLight’s Enterprise sales team in the NY area.

FirstLight, headquartered in Albany, NY, provides fiber optic data, voice, and high-speed Internet services to enterprise, carrier and wholesale customers in Upstate New York and Northern New England utilizing its own fiber optic network. FirstLight offers a robust suite of advanced telecommunications services, including dedicated Internet access, Ethernet, traditional TDM solutions, SIP trunks, virtual PBX and Data Center Colocation.

Summary:

Sales Engineers are the primary technical resource for the sales force developing and costing network designs. Sales Engineers are responsible for actively driving and managing the technology evaluation stage of the sales process to a successful conclusion. Working in conjunction with the sales team, the Sales Engineer acts as the key technical advisor and product advocate for FirstLight services. The Sales Engineer must be able to articulate the technology and product positioning to both business and technical users within assigned accounts. He or she must be able to establish and maintain strong relationships throughout the sales cycle. Working in conjunction with the assigned Account Manager, the Sales Engineer will conduct a customer needs assessment and then develop a communications solution tailored to meet those customer needs.

Responsibilities:

• Provides pre-sales technical support to the FirstLight Sales team
• Able to present FirstLight’s service capabilities to both technical teams as well as business-oriented members within customers/prospects
• Able to translate customers’ requirements into a winning solution including the design of the services, costing of the components of the solution and creation of business cases to support the opportunity
• Responsible for presenting the services at field events such as conferences, seminars, etc.
• Able to respond to functional and technical elements of RFIs/RFPs
• Able to convey customer requirements to internal teams within FirstLight
• Acts as a liaison between the customer and FirstLight engineering and technical operations personnel and contractors during the design, construction and installation process.
• Able to travel throughout sales territory

Qualifications:

Ideal candidates must be self-motivated with a proven track record in telecommunications sales and knowledge of technology. Comfortable in a dynamic atmosphere of a technical organization developing solutions tailored to large business customers’ needs. Must possess strong presentation skills and be comfortable presenting to all levels within a business including C-level management. Must be able to communicate effectively in written responses to emails, RFPs, and when submitting reports. Organized, persuasive and analytical, the ideal candidate must be able to eliminate sales obstacles through creative and adaptive approaches. 3-5+ years relevant experience in service provider sales engineering. A solid understanding of the competitive landscape is essential. Experience and familiarity with new and emerging telecommunications technology, including but not limited to fiber optics, Ethernet, virtual PBX, managed services and software as a service (SAAS) with a strong desire to continuously learn new skills and technologies quickly.

Education and/or Experience:

A B.S. in Engineering or a related field is strongly preferred.

Computer Skills

To perform this job successfully, an individual should have strong working knowledge of the Microsoft suite including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Visio and Outlook. The candidate also needs to have experience working with mapping software including Google Earth and knowledge of Sugar CRM software a plus.