Head of Sales Engineering

assembled.com; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 300,000 - 550,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Equity

Competitive compensation

Job summary

Assembled is seeking a founding sales engineering leader to own the technical side of how we win deals. You’ll start with one SE and hire, building the function from the ground up, while staying hands-on in the deals that matter most.

You’ll partner with Account Executives to run evaluations from discovery to close, focusing on AI agents and our workforce products. This role offers equity and high-growth potential.

Qualifications

• Analytical operator who likes hard problems and can reason across the product.
• Significant technical and pre-sales experience with broad product scope.
• Closed large enterprise deals (≥ $500K upfront value).
• Built or scaled a sales engineering function before.
• Hands-on in deals and coaching sales engineers; comfortable in deals.
• Strategic thinker who connects market trends to go-to-market decisions.
• Growth-minded coach who provides direct feedback and collaboration.

Responsibilities

• Lead and grow the sales engineering team; hire, coach and define metrics.
• Drive technical evaluations from discovery to close; run strategic deals.
• Build demo environments, discovery frameworks, POC playbooks and content.
• Own the technical win end-to-end; tailor demos and prove value with real data.
• Own RFP and security responses; create repeatable processes as the team grows.
• Bridge prospects and product; shape roadmap with customer evidence.
• Partner with sales leadership on pipeline and strategic opportunities.

Skills

Analytical thinking

Sales engineering

Deal execution

Pre-sales experience

Enterprise sales

Job description

ABOUT ASSEMBLED

Assembled helps companies scale great customer support. As consumers, we've all been there. You need help, you're stuck on hold or going in circles with an AI, and your problem still isn't solved.

Behind great support is a complex operational problem: thousands of people and AI agents working across teams, time zones, and products as new problems emerge. Assembled gives support leaders the tools to manage that complexity, from AI agents that resolve customer issues to software that forecasts demand, builds schedules, and makes intraday adjustments.

More than 400 companies, including DoorDash, Salesforce, Stripe, and Sephora, trust Assembled https://www.assembled.com/customers. We've raised $71M from NEA, Emergence Capital, Stripe, and Basis Set Ventures and have offices in San Francisco, New York, and London.

THE ROLE

This is the founding sales engineering leadership role at Assembled. You'll own the technical side of how we win deals, and from day one that means getting your hands dirty in the ones that matter most. You'll also build the sales engineering function from the ground up and shape the team your way, starting with one sales engineer and the green light to hire more. You've done this before, ideally more than once, and you know what a high-performing SE function looks like at scale. You'll partner with Account Executives to run technical evaluations, prove out Assembled against real customer data and workflows, and turn complex support operations problems into clear, compelling demonstrations of value delivered. A big share of that work centers on our AI agents for chat, voice and email. You'll show prospects how those agents resolve real customer issues inside their existing support stack, and how they work alongside the human teams Assembled already helps them run.

The best SE leaders don't want to step out of the deals, they want to be in them. You'll stay hands-on and carry a reduced quota because we want someone who still loves deal execution and the learnings that come from it. Alongside that, you'll stand up the demo environments, the discovery frameworks, the proof-of-concept playbooks and the technical content that help the whole GTM team move faster. You'll be the technical voice our prospects trust and the bridge between what customers need and what product builds next.

This is a high-priority, cross-functional role with exposure to executive leadership and a large level of responsibility that will help accelerate your career. We're in-person 5 days a week from our bright, airy offices in the Mission (San Francisco) and Chelsea Market (New York).

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Lead and grow the sales engineering team. Hire, coach and develop sales engineers, and define the metrics the function is measured by, such as technical win rate, POC conversion and time-to-value.
• Partner with Account Executives to drive technical evaluations from discovery through proof of concept to close, and run our largest and most strategic deals yourself, especially early on, to get your product knowledge and command of the platform to world-class.
• Build the function's foundations: demo environments, discovery frameworks, POC playbooks and reusable technical content that scale the whole team.
• Own the technical win end to end. Lead discovery to understand each customer's business context and goals, propose the right technical solution across our AI agents and workforce products, run tailored demos, and prove value delivered against real data and workflows.
• Own RFP and security assessment responses, and build the processes and content that make them repeatable as the team grows.
• Act as the bridge between prospects and product. Bring hard customer evidence back so it shapes the roadmap, and partner with product marketing on technical content and competitive positioning.
• Partner with sales leadership on the pipeline as a whole and on individual deals. Spot the patterns in where we win and where deals stall, and shape the technical strategy for the opportunities that matter most.

ABOUT YOU

• You're an analytical operator who likes hard problems: You'd rather solve a prospect's problem than talk about it. You bring significant technical and pre-sales experience, and messy data or complex integrations get you going. Assembled is a wide and deep product, so you'll need real analytical range and strong critical thinking to reason across all of it.
• You've closed large enterprise deals (required): You've led the technical side of complex enterprise sales cycles and have won deals of $500K or more in upfront value. This is a hard requirement for the role. You're as effective with a C-level exec as you are with an engineer or a support agent.
• You've built the function before: You've stood up or scaled a sales engineering team from scratch, ideally more than once. You've seen what works and what doesn't, and you know how to get there.
• You lead by doing: You've managed or mentored sales engineers, and you still love carrying a number and being in the deal yourself. You set the bar through your own work and raise the team around you.
• You move fast and don't give up: You work with urgency, juggle competing deals and drive toward value delivered. You push through roadblocks in unstructured environments and are comfortable operating independently.
• You think strategically while working in the weeds: You pull key trends from prospect conversations and the broader market, then connect the dots on what we should do on go-to-market and product.
• You're a coach with a growth mindset: You coach and give direct feedback to sales engineers and account executives alike, and you welcome the same feedback in return. You're collaborative, humble and quick to help.
• Preferred: 5+ years in sales engineering, solutions consulting or a comparable technical pre-sales role. Hands-on experience selling or deploying AI agents across chat, voice or email is a strong plus, as is a background in Workforce Management or Support Operations.

If this is you, you're a fit.

This role comes with competitive compensation (base + commission), equity in a high-growth startup, and the opportunity to significantly influence a rapidly expanding market. If you're ready for impactful work with freedom to innovate and execute, we'd love to connect.

We know great candidates don't always meet every requirement listed in a job description. If the role excites you and you believe you can make an impact at Assembled. We value diverse perspectives and are committed to building an inclusive workplace where everyone feels like they belong and has the opportunity to do their best work. We look forward to hearing from you!

For United States Applicants:
Assembled participates in E-Verify and will provide the federal government with your Form I-9 information to confirm that you are authorized to work in the United States.

For United Kingdom Applicants:
Assembled is required to verify your right to work in the UK and will conduct a Right to Work check prior to employment in accordance with applicable law.