Staff Solutions Engineer
Leads European presales technical capture for aircraft and defense solutions, translating customer mission needs into feasible proposals and product-aligned solutions. Requires 5+ years of relevant experience, an engineering bachelor’s degree, government requirements expertise, and strong technical communication skills.
About the job
Responsibilities
- Lead technical capture efforts for European opportunities, ensuring solutions are feasible and aligned with the product roadmap, with a focus on aircraft and familiarity with the broader product suite.
- Manage customer engagements, pre-sales technical support, proposal contributions, and solution development across multiple priorities.
- Develop technical strategies and compelling, compliant proposals to maximize win probability.
- Serve as the primary technical lead for European business development engagements, collaborating with business development, engineering, operations, program management, and product management.
- Create and maintain technical content for proposals, RFIs, white papers, capability briefs, specifications, FAQs, and sales collateral.
- Support business development and account executives as a product subject-matter expert during customer engagements and solution discussions.
- Liaise between business development and engineering to assess customer requests, product capabilities, timelines, and roadmaps.
- Train and mentor business development teams on technical aspects of the solutions.
- Support competitive analysis, market intelligence, process improvement, and technical capture strategy refinement.
- Analyze regional operational and environmental factors to inform product roadmaps and customer-mission-aligned solutions.
Requirements
- 5+ years of experience in technical presales, business development, or solutions engineering, preferably in defense, aerospace, AI-driven technology, or U.S. federal/international government environments.
- Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a related field.
- Experience with U.S. federal or international government requirements.
- Strong technical acumen in aircraft, UAS, multispectral sensor systems, AI, autonomy, and defense technology.
- Strong analytical, quantitative problem-solving, technical writing, and solution-development skills.
- Ability to author RFIs, abstracts, and quad charts.
- Leadership experience in a work setting or through extracurricular activities.
- Excellent communication skills and ability to translate complex technical concepts for technical and non-technical stakeholders.
- Ability to collaborate cross-functionally and engage stakeholders at all organizational levels.
- Demonstrated reliability, work ethic, teamwork, kindness, and commitment to high standards.
- Ability to work effectively in a fast-paced, nontraditional defense-contractor environment.
Nice-to-haves
- Experience with V-BAT, Hivemind, and Vision Systems.
- Experience managing Foreign Military Sale and Direct Commercial Sale proposals.
- Strong background with unmanned aircraft systems.
- Understanding of military operations and the acquisition process.
- 3+ years of presales or solutions engineering experience.
- 3+ years of experience in a startup environment.
- Understanding of specific DoD operational scenarios and systems.
- Active DoD security clearance.
Skills
Aircraft, Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Multispectral Sensors, Artificial Intelligence, Autonomy, Defense Technology, V-Bat, Hivemind, Vision Systems, Technical Writing, Proposal Development, Foreign Military Sales, Direct Commercial Sales, Dod Acquisition, Competitive Analysis
Similar jobs
Sales Engineering jobs
Shield AI
Dallas, TX
Leads technical presales and capture efforts for uncrewed aircraft and autonomy solutions across Asia, the Middle East, and Oceania. Requires at least five years of relevant experience, a technical bachelor's degree or equivalent, and expertise in defense systems, customer engagement, and proposal development.
Snowflake
New York, NY
Leads a multi-layered solution engineering organization serving major financial services accounts, partnering with sales and executive stakeholders to drive cloud data and AI adoption. Requires 15+ years in sales or pre-sales, strong financial services technology expertise, and experience leading complex enterprise transformations.
Chainguard
United States
Leads an Enterprise Sales Engineering team supporting public-sector and Southeast-region customers, while shaping technical sales strategy and customer evaluations. Requires extensive Enterprise Sales Engineering experience, including leadership, cloud and container technologies, security expertise, and sales methodology knowledge.
Cloudflare
Austin, TXLeads customer-facing design, demonstrations, evaluations, and technical closes for Cloudflare One solutions, with primary focus on Zero Trust and additional responsibility for enterprise WAN and AI security. Requires 5+ years in a customer-facing technical role plus practical security and networking experience.
Datadog
FloridaSenior Sales Engineer serving enterprise key accounts, leading technical evaluations, solution strategy, demos, and customer discovery in partnership with Sales. Requires 7+ years in enterprise sales or solutions engineering plus advanced cloud, Kubernetes, observability, and security expertise.