Senior Sales Engineer

primer.ai; Pasadena, San Francisco, Washington (CA, CA, District of Columbia); On-site; USD 140,000 - 210,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Salary + ISO equity

401K

Unlimited PTO

Book allowances

Job summary

Primer, a safety-focused AI company, seeks a Senior Sales Engineer to partner with go-to-market teams and government accounts. You’ll lead the technical cycle from discovery to demos, translating mission needs into Primer solutions and aligning product/engineering with customer feedback.

You will articulate complex AI concepts to analysts, engineers, and leadership, helping customers see value before buy. This role offers equity, 401(k), unlimited PTO, and a collaborative team of experts.

Qualifications

• 5–7+ years in sales engineering or related roles.
• Experience selling enterprise software or AI to the IC.
• Direct IC agency support experience.
• Strong understanding of intelligence workflows.
• Ability to explain AI concepts to diverse stakeholders.
• Experience with mission-driven analytic workflows.

Responsibilities

• Enable customers to relate Primer’s capabilities to mission outcomes.
• Represent the technical voice of the customer within the account team.
• Support ideation and implementation of solutions with product and engineering.
• Prioritize new features based on customer engagement and feedback.

Skills

Sales engineering

Solutions architecture

Customer-facing

IC experience

AI solutions

Technical storytelling

Education

Bachelor's or advanced degree in a technical field

Tools

Neo4j

Docker

Elastic

Job description

Pasadena, California, United States; San Francisco, California, United States; Washington, District of Columbia, United States

Primer exists to make the world a safer place. We do this by providing trusted decision-ready AI to the world's most critical organizations. Our software enables leaders, operators, and analysts to better understand the changing world around us in real time and make informed decisions when the stakes are high. Primer has offices in San Francisco, Pasadena, CA and Arlington, VA. For more information, please visit https://primer.ai/

As a Senior Sales Engineer, you’ll be the technical partner to Primer’s go-to-market team. You’ll work closely with Account Executives, Advisors, Partners, and Marketing to find, shape, and win opportunities across government. Your main job is to understand each prospect’s mission: their operational challenges, their workflows, and the outcomes they’re responsible for. Then you’ll show how Primer’s solution applies directly to that mission.

You’ll lead the technical side of the sales cycle, from early discovery through demos, prototypes, and proofs of concept. You’ll turn complex mission requirements into clear, compelling solutions that help customers see and experience Primer’s value before they buy. You can take in new technical concepts quickly and spot obstacles early, so pursuits move forward and our teams stay aligned and credible with government stakeholders.

Role Responsibilities - How You Will Make an Impact

• Enable customers to see the art of the possible by relating Primer’s technical capabilities to mission outcomes.
• Represent the technical voice of the customer within your account team to develop strategies that enhance mission outcomes for our customers.
• Support the ideation and implementation of solutions and feature sets for the customers while partnering with product and engineering to develop and deliver.
• Partner with product and engineering at Primer to identify and prioritize new features and algorithmic development based on customer engagement and feedback.

Relevant Skills and Experience

• 5–7+ years in sales engineering, solutions architecture, or customer-facing technical roles, ideally selling enterprise software or AI solutions into the Intelligence Community
• Direct experience supporting IC agencies and elements, such as CIA, NSA, DIA, NGA, NRO, ODNI, or the military service intelligence components
• Strong understanding of intelligence missions and analytic workflows, including the intelligence cycle, all-source analysis, OSINT, and how analysts collect, process, exploit, and disseminate information
• Experience with how the IC buys technology: acquisition pathways such as OTAs, SBIRs, and IDIQs; contract vehicles; budget and program cycles; and moving capabilities from pilot to enterprise adoption
• Ability to tie analytic and mission outcomes to technical solutions, and to explain how AI improves analyst speed, scale, and confidence while respecting analytic tradecraft standards
• Ability to explain complex AI concepts to analysts, engineers, mission owners, and program leadership

AI and technical knowledge

• Hands-on experience with LLMs and agentic AI, including multi-agent workflows, tool use, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), and evaluating agent performance and reliability
• Solid grounding in NLP, including named-entity recognition (NER), entity resolution, and clustering, especially on multilingual and unstructured intelligence data
• Experience with graph databases (e.g., Neo4j) and with building or using knowledge graphs to model entities, relationships, networks, and events
• Experience deploying into IC environments, including classified networks (JWICS, SIPRNet), IC cloud environments (C2E), on-premise, and air-gapped systems
• Experience with Docker and Elastic
• Understanding of IC security and accreditation requirements, including ICD 503, Authority to Operate (ATO) processes, FedRAMP, IL5/6, and FIPS

Preferred Qualifications:

• Active TS/SCI clearance; Full-Scope or CI Polygraph strongly preferred
• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in a technical field, or equivalent practical experience
• Prior service as an intelligence analyst, targeter, or technical officer within the IC or military intelligence

What we offer:

• Rapidly growing company, with opportunities for career growth
• Compensation in the form of Salary + Incentive Stock Options (ISOs)
• 401K
• Unlimited Paid Time Off
• Smart, engaged co-workers who are at the top of their game
• Honest and open environment for exchange of ideas
• Real customers with global name recognition + healthy sales pipeline
• Proactive learning and teaching opportunities via individual book allowances, tech talks, and brown bag lunches

Primer works closely with the U.S. defense and intelligence establishment. Any offer of employment is conditioned on an applicant or employee being able to meet any applicable government contract requirements. The company may rescind any offer of employment to an applicant or terminate an employee if the applicant or employee is unable to perform the functions of the position in compliance with applicable government contracts or if an applicant or employee makes a false attestation of compliance.

What We Offer

We are a series D funded company with investors from Addition, USIT, Lux Capital, Amplify Partners, Addition Capital, Bloomberg Beta, and others. W e are intentional around building a diverse and inclusive team of subject matter experts to better advocate for the needs of our users.

We care a lot about our work and about the well being of our team. We encourage everyone to work at a sustainable pace and have a flexible vacation policy for team members to utilize, Wellness Days and 100% paid leave for parents of growing families.

We offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits. This includes full medical, dental, and vision coverage, fertility benefits through Carrot, mental health coverage on demand with Headspace Care+, Gympass+ Membership via Wellhub, One Medical Membership, 401(k), remote work stipends, and monthly internet allowance.

Primer is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affinitive Action employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, gender (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. Please see the United States Department of Labor's EEO poster and EEO poster supplement for additional information.

If you need assistance or accommodation due to a disability, you may contact us at [e-mail].

Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.