Solutions Engineer (Sales & Marketing)

Jendmark; Gqeberha; On-site; ZAR 650,000 - 900,000; Full time

Job summary

Jendamark seeks an engineering liaison who thrives at the intersection of sales and technology. You’ll translate customer problems into engineering briefs, work with cross-functional teams to design viable solutions, and present concepts back to customers toward secure orders.

The role offers a dynamic learning curve; you’ll gain deep exposure to powertrain, automation, and digital manufacturing practices while developing senior technical and commercial leadership throughout the business.

Qualifications

• Must hold an engineering degree in a relevant field.
• Ability to read and interpret mechanical and electrical drawings.
• Excellent written and spoken English with customer-facing clarity.
• Willingness to travel internationally with a valid passport and driver’s licence.

Responsibilities

• Serve as the bridge between customers and engineering floor to translate problems into briefs.
• Collaborate with mechanical, electrical and innovation teams to design solutions.
• Present concepts to customers and negotiate orders.
• Ensure smooth handover to project and engineering teams and maintain customer contact.

Skills

Sales experience

Marketing experience

Customer-facing experience

Clear English communication

Curiosity about manufacturing

Interpretation of drawings

Education

Engineering degree (Mechanical/Electrical/Mechatronic/Industrial)

Tools

PLCs & control systems

Automation exposure

ODIN software

Job description

Essential Requirements:

• Sales & Marketing experience
• A degree or national diploma in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronic or Industrial Engineering
• The ability to read and interpret mechanical and electrical drawings
• Clear, confident communication in English - written and spoken - including in front of a customer
• Genuine curiosity about how things are made, and the persistence to keep asking until you understand
• A valid Code 8 driver’s licence, a valid passport and a willingness to travel internationally

Advantageous Requirements:

• Exposure to automation, PLCs and control systems
• Costing and estimating experience
• Project management experience
• Turnkey project experience
• Sales or customer-facing experience
• Afrikaans or German Languages

About the role:

The successful candidate stands between the customer and our engineering floor. A customer arrives with a problem - a new engine variant, an EV battery line, a takt time they cannot hit, a quality escape they cannot trace. The candidate’s job is to understand that problem competently, translate it into an engineering brief, work shoulder-to-shoulder with our mechanical, electrical and innovation teams to design a solution, and then go back to the customer and present it.

You own the idea from the first conversation to the signed order. When it becomes a real machine on a real factory floor, it was yours.

This is genuinely a dynamic role and the learning curve is steep. Within your first two years you would have developed:

• A working understanding of how the world’s best manufacturers actually run - seen from inside their plants, not from a case study
• Assembly process design across powertrain, EV and new-energy applications
• Commercial fluency: costing, estimating, margin, risk and negotiation
• Fluency in Industry 4.0 and digital manufacturing through our own ODIN suite
• The ability to present technical work to senior international audience - the skill that separates good engineers from the ones who end up running things

This is a recognised route into senior technical and commercial leadership at Jendamark. Several of our people took it

Main Tasks and Responsibilities:

• Attentive listening: Sitting with customers — on site, on calls, in their plants — until you understand not just what they have asked for but what they actually need.
• Creating a brief overview: Compiling the requirements as prescribed in order for our engineers to design concepts precisely without uncertainty.
• Building the concept: Working with the mechanical, electrical and innovation teams to shape the process, the station layout, the automation content and the ODIN software scope.
• Weighing the options: Assessing solutions for technical fit, cost, risk and manufacturability — and having the judgement to kill the clever idea that will not survive the shop floor.
• Costing: Building the estimate and working through to a selling price that wins the job and still makes a profit.
• Presenting: Standing in front of the customer and defending the concept, then negotiating it through to an order.
• Handover: Briefing the project and engineering teams so nothing is lost between the promise and the build.
• Maintaining contact: Being the person key customers call when something is not routine.

We are deliberately open on years of experience. If you are an engineer with three or four years into a technical role and you have realised that the part of the job you enjoy most is the customer conversation and the concept, we would like to hear from you — even if you have never carried a sales number in your life.

Preference will be given to employees from the designated groups in line with the provisions of the Employment Equity Act, No. 55 of 1998