Sr Sales Engineer

Senior Sales Engineer

Our client is a growing advanced aerospace automation and manufacturing technology company seeking a Senior Sales Engineer to support continued expansion across North American aerospace and advanced manufacturing markets. This is a newly created role for a customer-facing technical professional who can combine engineering knowledge, commercial judgment, and strong relationship-building skills to help develop and close complex engineered systems opportunities.

This role is focused on consultative technical sales for advanced automation, tooling, robotics, and capital equipment solutions used in production environments. The right candidate will be comfortable working directly with customers to understand manufacturing challenges, define requirements, shape practical technical solutions, and partner with internal teams to develop proposals that are both competitive and executable.

As the Senior Sales Engineer, you will serve as a technical lead during the business development and sales process. You will work with customers, engineering, program management, supply chain, and commercial stakeholders to identify opportunities, develop solution concepts, support proposal strategy, and help convert customer needs into contracted business.

You will play a key role in ensuring proposed solutions are clearly scoped, technically sound, commercially aligned, and ready for a smooth transition into program execution.

Why This Role is Essential

Our client is expanding its presence in the North American aerospace and advanced manufacturing market. This role is central to that growth.

The Senior Sales Engineer will help build customer relationships, uncover new opportunities, and position advanced automation and tooling solutions for complex production environments. This person will also help ensure that customer commitments are aligned with internal capabilities, cost assumptions, schedule expectations, and execution plans.

This is a strong opportunity for someone who enjoys complex technical sales, customer discovery, proposal development, and long-cycle relationship building in aerospace or advanced manufacturing environments.

Background

Great candidates may come from:

• Aerospace tooling or automation companies
• Technical sales roles supporting robotics, automation, tooling, or capital equipment
• Applications engineering or systems engineering roles with customer-facing responsibility
• Custom machinery or factory automation companies
• Aerospace, defense, space, or advanced manufacturing environments
• Companies selling complex engineered systems into production or manufacturing settings

The best candidates will bring a combination of engineering knowledge, technical sales experience, proposal experience, customer-facing communication skills, and established relationships in relevant markets.

What You'll Do

• Develop and support new customer opportunities across aerospace, defense, space, and advanced manufacturing markets
• Build and maintain trusted relationships with engineering, operations, manufacturing, procurement, and leadership stakeholders
• Conduct customer discovery, site visits, production assessments, technical workshops, and requirements discussions
• Translate customer needs into clear technical requirements, solution concepts, and executable scopes
• Lead or support technical solution development across robotics, tooling, controls, vision systems, factory integration, and related automation systems
• Partner with engineering, program management, supply chain, and commercial teams to develop cost estimates, schedules, resource plans, assumptions, and risk profiles
• Support RFIs, RFQs, RFPs, technical volumes, proposal responses, presentations, and customer reviews
• Contribute to capture strategy, proposal positioning, value propositions, and customer-facing technical messaging
• Evaluate technical feasibility, risks, assumptions, and tradeoffs during early opportunity development
• Identify expansion opportunities, change proposals, and additional customer needs
• Provide technical continuity from early sales engagement into program kickoff and execution
• Help ensure a clear handoff from sales to program delivery, including scope, assumptions, risks, and customer expectations
• Support continuous improvement of proposal tools, reusable solution concepts, cost models, and technical documentation

Skills and Competencies

Required

• Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, industrial engineering, or a related technical field preferred
• 7+ years of experience in technical sales, sales engineering, applications engineering, systems engineering, business development, or program engineering for complex engineered systems
• Experience with aerospace tooling, robotics, automation, capital equipment, custom machinery, or advanced manufacturing systems
• Demonstrated ability to develop technical solutions for complex hardware/software systems in industrial or production environments
• Ability to translate customer requirements into technical concepts, system architectures, and executable scopes
• Experience working directly with customers to define requirements, present solutions, and support pre-contract discussions
• Strong understanding of mechanical systems, controls, robotics, automated manufacturing, tooling, factory integration, or related technical domains
• Experience with RFIs, RFQs, RFPs, proposal development, cost estimation, technical volumes, scope definition, or customer-facing technical documentation
• Ability to evaluate technical feasibility, risks, assumptions, and commercial impacts during early solution development
• Strong customer-facing communication, presentation, relationship-building, and follow-through skills
• Ability to coordinate effectively across engineering, program management, commercial, supply chain, and manufacturing teams
• Comfort with regular domestic and international travel
• Ability to work onsite in the Greater Seattle area when not traveling
• Candidates must be able to meet applicable export-control eligibility requirements

Desired

• Established relationships across aerospace, defense, space, or advanced manufacturing customers
• Experience supporting or closing large, complex capital equipment opportunities
• Experience with aerospace OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, space companies, defense contractors, or advanced manufacturing organizations
• Background in robotic drilling, fastening, inspection, assembly automation, precision tooling, or factory automation
• CAD proficiency, ideally with SolidWorks or CATIA, for concept development, layouts, and technical discussions
• Experience with systems engineering principles, including requirements definition, interface management, and validation planning
• Experience with industrial automation safety standards
• Experience with international programs, suppliers, or customer coordination
• Experience helping build or expand a commercial function, market, or territory
• French language skills are a plus

Compensation and Incentive Structure

This is a competitive salaried opportunity. Travel expenses are covered. A performance-based bonus structure tied to successful deal closure and revenue impact.

Because this role supports market expansion, the person hired will help build long-term customer relationships, support successful deal closure, and contribute to revenue growth through high-value technical opportunities.

What's In It for You

• Competitive compensation
• Newly created senior role with meaningful influence on market expansion
• Opportunity to support complex aerospace automation and advanced manufacturing solutions
• Ability to work on high-value engineered systems rather than commodity products
• High visibility with customers, leadership, engineering, program management, and commercial teams
• Strong technical environment where customer needs, engineering capability, and business strategy intersect
• Opportunity to bring existing industry relationships into a role with long-term growth potential
• Comprehensive benefits package
• Relocation may be considered for the right candidate
• Regular domestic and international travel to customer sites and industry opportunities