Solutions Engineer (Sales & Marketing)

Jendamark Automation; Gqeberha; On-site; ZAR 600,000 - 1,000,000; Full time

Job summary

Jendamark Automation in Gqeberha, South Africa, invites an engineer with a customer-facing mindset to bridge our customers and engineering teams. You’ll translate problems into engineering briefs, shape concepts with mechanical, electrical and ODIN software scope, and present solutions to clients.

You own concepts from first conversation to order, learning fast about advanced manufacturing, powertrain, EV and Industry 4.0. A sales-fluent engineering mind is essential.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree or national diploma in Mechanical, Electrical, Mechatronic or Industrial Engineering.
• 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.

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.
• 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.

Skills

Sales & Marketing experience

Communication skills

Customer facing

Problem solving

Education

Engineering degree or diploma (Mechanical/Electrical/Mechatronic/Industrial)

Tools

Automation exposure

PLC knowledge

Job description

• 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

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.

Role

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

Jendamark Automation reserves the right not to make an appointment. Applications will not qualify the applicant to an interview or appointment, as only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for interviews. Please kindly consider your application unsuccessful if not contacted three weeks after submission/closing date.