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Solutions Engineer Job Description (2026): Duties, Skills and Salary

A solutions engineer is the technical expert in a sales team. They work alongside account executives to understand a prospect's technical needs, show how the product meets them in tailored demos, build proofs of concept, answer security and architecture questions, and design how the product will fit into the customer's systems.

The role, also called sales engineer, pre-sales engineer or solutions consultant, needs technical depth and ease in front of customers. Solutions engineers often share a team quota, support several AEs, and feed product teams with what they learn from prospects and competitors.

Solutions Engineer job description template

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Solutions Engineer

[Company] · [City and office days, or remote with the countries or time zones you hire in] · [Full-time]

About [Company]

[Two or three sentences on what your company does, who it serves and why this team matters now.]

About the role

We're hiring a solutions engineer to partner with our account executives on [segment] deals. You'll run technical discovery, deliver tailored demos and proofs of concept, and show [technical buyers] how [product] fits their architecture.

What you'll do

  • Run technical discovery to understand each prospect's systems, requirements and constraints.
  • Deliver tailored product demos to technical and business audiences.
  • Scope, build and run proofs of concept with agreed success criteria.
  • Answer RFPs, security questionnaires and architecture questions.
  • Design integration approaches using our APIs and [relevant technologies].
  • Hand technical context over to onboarding or professional services once the deal closes.
  • Share field feedback on features and competitors with product and marketing.

What you'll bring

  • [X]+ years in solutions or sales engineering, consulting, or a technical role facing customers.
  • Technical depth in [APIs, cloud, data, security or your domain].
  • Excellent presentation and demo skills.
  • The ability to explain complex topics simply to different audiences.
  • Hands-on scripting or coding for demos and integrations [Python, JavaScript, SQL].
  • Experience working with sales teams on complex deals.

Nice to have

  • Cloud certifications, or experience with [AWS, Azure or GCP].
  • Experience in [industry].
  • Enterprise security reviews and compliance requirements.
  • A background in software engineering or implementation.

What we offer

  • [Pay range: e.g. $X–$Y base salary, plus bonus or equity if offered]
  • [Base plus variable pay tied to team targets, travel for customer meetings, certification budget]
  • [Health cover, retirement or pension plan, paid time off, parental leave]
  • [Work authorization: whether you can sponsor a visa or hire through an employer of record]

[Our process: a recruiter call, a technical interview, a demo of our product (or one you know well) to a panel playing the customer, and meetings with sales and engineering leaders.]

[Your equal opportunity statement, and how candidates can ask for adjustments during the process]

Put the pay range in the ad. Several US states, including California, Colorado, New York and Washington, require it in job postings, and the EU Pay Transparency Directive gives applicants the right to know the starting pay or its range before the interview.

What real solutions engineer job ads ask for

The skills named most often in the 440 newest solutions engineer job ads we analyzed (out of 3,609 live postings), as the share of ads that mention each. A skill most ads name is a fair must-have; one few ads name belongs under nice-to-have.

  1. 1Pre-sales31%
  2. 2Python27%
  3. 3AWS25%
  4. 4Azure25%
  5. 5Proof of concept24%
  6. 6Google Cloud18%
  7. 7LLMs18%
  8. 8Roadmapping17%

Degrees mentioned most: Bachelor's degree (38%), Computer Science (33%), Master's degree (10%).

From live job ads · computed November 2, 2026 · refreshed daily

Solutions Engineer duties by seniority

What the job usually looks like at each level. Pitch the ad at one level and say which in the title.

Junior

  • Supports demos and technical questions on smaller deals.
  • Builds demo environments and fills in questionnaires.
  • Learns the product in depth and shadows senior SEs.

Mid-level

  • Owns the technical side of mid-sized deals end to end.
  • Runs proofs of concept and complex demos alone.
  • Supports several account executives at once.

Senior

  • Leads technical strategy on enterprise and strategic deals.
  • Builds reusable demos, proof-of-concept kits and enablement material.
  • Mentors SEs and influences the product roadmap.

Solutions Engineer career path

  1. Associate Solutions Engineer
  2. Solutions Engineer
  3. Principal Solutions Engineer
  4. SE Manager or Solutions Architect

Solutions engineers often come from software engineering, consulting, implementation, support engineering or IT, bringing technical credibility to sales conversations. Later moves include SE management, solutions architecture, product management, technical account management and sales leadership.

Advertised pay for solutions engineer jobs

Median advertised base salary in Solutions Engineer job ads in the United States: $177,300 (middle half: $146,300–$213,800), from 784 job ads with a published salary in the last 90 days.

This is advertised pay, not total compensation: bonuses, commission, equity and benefits aren't included, and many ads publish no pay at all. Sales ads often quote on-target earnings (base plus commission) as the range, so these figures can run above base pay alone.

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Solutions Engineer job description FAQ

What does a solutions engineer do?

Supports the sales process with technical expertise: running technical discovery, giving tailored demos, building proofs of concept, answering security and architecture questions, and designing how the product fits the customer's systems.

Is a solutions engineer the same as a sales engineer?

Usually, yes: solutions engineer, sales engineer, pre-sales engineer and solutions consultant generally describe the same job. Solutions architect can mean a more senior pre-sales role or a post-sales design role, depending on the company.

Do solutions engineers have sales quotas?

Many do, often shared with the account executives they support or tied to the team's target, with variable pay attached. The job description should explain how the variable part works.