Solutions Engineer

About the role

You will act as a strategic technical partner to the sales organization while working hand in hand with engineering to drive the most critical deals forward. In this capacity, you own the technical narrative of Plain, ensuring that the platform's value is clearly demonstrated to prospective customers. You will be responsible for building the solutions engineering function from scratch, establishing best practices and playbooks as the team scales. The role requires deep collaboration with Account Executives and Customer Success Managers to align commercial objectives with technical feasibility. You will be a trusted advisor to both customers and internal stakeholders, translating complex technical concepts into clear and compelling narratives.

Key facts

What you'll do

• Drive the technical evaluation for prospective clients, establishing the foundational methodology for how the Solutions Engineering team interfaces with sales and onboarding from initial discovery through final deployment.
• Lead the design and execution of Proof of Concept evaluations, connecting a prospect's unique environment and requirements to Plain's capabilities to ensure a credible and persuasive demonstration.
• Serve as the primary technical authority throughout the sales cycle, acting as the main point of contact from initial discovery calls through to implementation and post-sale onboarding.
• Go deep on the Plain product suite, mastering every feature and workflow so you can effectively showcase functionality and configure solutions for highly specific and complex use cases.
• Influence the product roadmap by synthesizing and articulating structured feedback gathered during evaluations, ensuring that the voice of the technical buyer directly informs product decisions.
• Act as a bridge between prospects and the product organization, channeling insights about blockers, feature requests, and competitive gaps back to engineering for rapid iteration.
• Coach and empower sales and customer success teams on the technical nuances of Plain, enabling them to confidently discuss architecture, integrations, and ROI with executive stakeholders.
• Develop and maintain strong technical relationships with key stakeholders, earning trust by demonstrating deep expertise in APIs, logs, SQL, webhooks, and the underlying systems that power modern support infrastructure.
• Thrive in a fast-paced, scrappy environment where you are expected to build processes and documentation as you advance, rather than waiting for them to be handed to you.
• Represent Plain at the highest levels of prospect organizations, engaging with technical decision-makers to validate fit and articulate the long-term value of the platform.

Requirements

• Possess a minimum of four years of hands-on experience in solutions engineering, sales engineering, or technical pre-sales roles within a SaaS or software-focused environment.
• Have a proven track record of working in settings that involve a developer audience or complex technical products where deep technical acumen is required.
• Demonstrate a strong desire to engage across the entire customer lifecycle, showing equal comfort and competence in both pre-sales discovery and post-sales implementation or onboarding.
• Be a builder by nature, with the ability to educate technical buyers in real time while simultaneously customizing the Plain platform to align with their unique workflows and operational constraints.
• Exhibit scrappy and creative problem-solving skills, consistently seeking to fully understand a prospect's pain points and product feedback before escalating to engineering or product teams.
• Communicate with precision and clarity, successfully articulating sophisticated technical concepts to both highly technical engineers and non-technical executive audiences.
• Thrive in a small, high-visibility team where individual contributions are immediately visible and have a direct impact on the success of the company and its customers.
• Maintain strong technical literacy, including the ability to read logs, write SQL queries, understand API interactions, manage webhooks, and grasp the fundamental mechanics of how software systems operate end to end.

Practical notes

This role is hybrid, requiring three days per week in the San Francisco office. The position operates with an early start time of 7:30 or 8:00 AM Pacific Time to facilitate real-time collaboration with colleagues based in Europe. Travel is not expected as part of the standard duties for this role. The engagement is full-time, and the position is exempt from standard playbooks, requiring the incumbent to build processes and procedures independently. There are no specific visa sponsorship details or published compensation figures included in this listing. The posting is open until the role is filled.