Senior Sales Engineer
Our client is a growing advanced aerospace automation and manufacturing technology company seeking a Senior Sales Engineer to support continued expansion across North American aerospace and advanced manufacturing markets. This is a newly created role for a customer-facing technical professional who can combine engineering knowledge, commercial judgment, and strong relationship-building skills to help develop and close complex engineered systems opportunities.
This role is focused on consultative technical sales for advanced automation, tooling, robotics, and capital equipment solutions used in production environments. The right candidate will be comfortable working directly with customers to understand manufacturing challenges, define requirements, shape practical technical solutions, and partner with internal teams to develop proposals that are both competitive and executable.
Defined
As the Senior Sales Engineer, you will serve as a technical lead during the business development and sales process. You will work with customers, engineering, program management, supply chain, and commercial stakeholders to identify opportunities, develop solution concepts, support proposal strategy, and help convert customer needs into contracted business.
You will play a key role in ensuring proposed solutions are clearly scoped, technically sound, commercially aligned, and ready for a smooth transition into program execution.
Why This Role is Essential
Our client is expanding its presence in the North American aerospace and advanced manufacturing market. This role is central to that growth.
The Senior Sales Engineer will help build customer relationships, uncover new opportunities, and position advanced automation and tooling solutions for complex production environments. This person will also help ensure that customer commitments are aligned with internal capabilities, cost assumptions, schedule expectations, and execution plans.
This is a strong opportunity for someone who enjoys complex technical sales, customer discovery, proposal development, and long-cycle relationship building in aerospace or advanced manufacturing environments.
Background
Great candidates may come from:
Aerospace tooling or automation companies
Technical sales roles supporting robotics, automation, tooling, or capital equipment
Applications engineering or systems engineering roles with customer-facing responsibility
Custom machinery or factory automation companies
Aerospace, defense, space, or advanced manufacturing environments
Companies selling complex engineered systems into production or manufacturing settings
The best candidates will bring a combination of engineering knowledge, technical sales experience, proposal experience, customer-facing communication skills, and established relationships in relevant markets.
What You'll Do
Develop and support new customer opportunities across aerospace, defense, space, and advanced manufacturing markets
Build and maintain trusted relationships with engineering, operations, manufacturing, procurement, and leadership stakeholders
Conduct customer discovery, site visits, production assessments, technical workshops, and requirements discussions
Translate customer needs into clear technical requirements, solution concepts, and executable scopes
Lead or support technical solution development across robotics, tooling, controls, vision systems, factory integration, and related automation systems
Partner with engineering, program management, supply chain, and commercial teams to develop cost estimates, schedules, resource plans, assumptions, and risk profiles
Support RFIs, RFQs, RFPs, technical volumes, proposal responses, presentations, and customer reviews
Contribute to capture strategy, proposal positioning, value propositions, and customer-facing technical messaging
Evaluate technical feasibility, risks, assumptions, and tradeoffs during early opportunity development
Identify expansion opportunities, change proposals, and additional customer needs
Provide technical continuity from early sales engagement into program kickoff and execution
Help ensure a clear handoff from sales to program delivery, including scope, assumptions, risks, and customer expectations
Support continuous improvement of proposal tools, reusable solution concepts, cost models, and technical documentation
Skills and Competencies
Required
Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, robotics, industrial engineering, or a related technical field preferred
7+ years of experience in technical sales, sales engineering, applications engineering, systems engineering, business development, or program engineering for complex engineered systems
Experience with aerospace tooling, robotics, automation, capital equipment, custom machinery, or advanced manufacturing systems
Demonstrated ability to develop technical solutions for complex hardware/software systems in industrial or production environments
Ability to translate customer requirements into technical concepts, system architectures, and executable scopes
Experience working directly with customers to define requirements, present solutions, and support pre-contract discussions
Strong understanding of mechanical systems, controls, robotics, automated manufacturing, tooling, factory integration, or related technical domains
Experience with RFIs, RFQs, RFPs, proposal development, cost estimation, technical volumes, scope definition, or customer-facing technical documentation
Ability to evaluate technical feasibility, risks, assumptions, and commercial impacts during early solution development
Strong customer-facing communication, presentation, relationship-building, and follow-through skills
Ability to coordinate effectively across engineering, program management, commercial, supply chain, and manufacturing teams
Comfort with regular domestic and international travel
Ability to work onsite in the Greater Seattle area when not traveling
Candidates must be able to meet applicable export-control eligibility requirements
Desired
Established relationships across aerospace, defense, space, or advanced manufacturing customers
Experience supporting or closing large, complex capital equipment opportunities
Experience with aerospace OEMs, Tier 1 suppliers, space companies, defense contractors, or advanced manufacturing organizations
Background in robotic drilling, fastening, inspection, assembly automation, precision tooling, or factory automation
CAD proficiency, ideally with SolidWorks or CATIA, for concept development, layouts, and technical discussions
Experience with systems engineering principles, including requirements definition, interface management, and validation planning
Experience with industrial automation safety standards
Experience with international programs, suppliers, or customer coordination
Experience helping build or expand a commercial function, market, or territory
French language skills are a plus
Compensation and Incentive Structure
This is a competitive salaried opportunity. Travel expenses are covered. A performance-based bonus structure tied to successful deal closure and revenue impact.
Because this role supports market expansion, the person hired will help build long-term customer relationships, support successful deal closure, and contribute to revenue growth through high-value technical opportunities.
What's In It for You
Competitive compensation including salary of $170,000 to $185,000
Newly created senior role with meaningful influence on market expansion
Opportunity to support complex aerospace automation and advanced manufacturing solutions
Ability to work on high-value engineered systems rather than commodity products
High visibility with customers, leadership, engineering, program management, and commercial teams
Strong technical environment where customer needs, engineering capability, and business strategy intersect
Opportunity to bring existing industry relationships into a role with long-term growth potential
Comprehensive benefits package
Relocation may be considered for the right candidate
Regular domestic and international travel to customer sites and industry opportunities