Senior Sales Engineer

Job description

About Katana Katana is a remote-first, AI-first SaaS company that builds powerful inventory and manufacturing software for 1,500+ businesses that make and sell physical products around the world. We've just stepped into an exciting new phase of expansion - moving beyond small merchants into a larger market of modern, multi-channel, multi-location businesses. With that growth comes bigger opportunities, more complex problems, and the chance to shape how we scale. Our 100+ person team across 10+ countries is building what's next - together. And that's where you come in. Why this role, why now If you're good at what you do, you've probably already hit the ceiling. The demos are scripted. The discovery template is locked. The interesting technical calls go to the two Sales Engineers who've been there longest, and your job is to walk prospects through someone else's slides, in someone else's process, with your name nowhere near the deal. This role is the opposite of that. - Real ownership. At a larger company, you deliver a demo library someone else built. Here you shape how technical selling actually works at Katana - and your fingerprints are on the deals that close because of it. - Speed. Spot a gap in how we're handling a use case on Monday, land a new approach by Friday. No enablement committee, no 6-month approval cycle to test a hypothesis. - Visibility. Direct line to Commercial Leadership and to Product. Your technical wins get seen and attributed - not buried in someone else's win story. - The team. Still small enough that everyone has a voice and voices actually get heard. Smart, curious, collaborative, down-to-earth humans — eager to win with the team and with the customers, more than in personal scoreboards. It's the part that's hardest to advertise and easiest to feel in the first week. - A credential that travels. "I shaped how Katana sells Advantage technically as the company moved upmarket" is a better story than being Sales Engineer #47 at a recognisable name - and that first-mover story counts for even more this early in the AI era. This isn't a role for someone who wants a bigger version of the job they already have. It's for someone ready to own something that matters - at a company moving fast enough that your work shows up in the results within months, not years. If you want to shape how a motion works while it's still taking form, not inherit a finished one, this is the rare seat where you actually can. About the role You'll be one of the first dedicated Sales Engineers for Advantage - our new go-to-market motion at Katana. You'll own the technical side of complex, multi-stakeholder deals with mid-market customers that are scaling beyond what basic tools can handle - from discovery through solution design to close. You'll partner tightly with an Account Executive on each deal, run the technical discovery yourself, design the solution against the customer's real workflows, and translate that back into something the buying committee can actually get behind. To be clear about scope: this isn't a demo-jockey seat. This role needs someone who can run their own technical discovery, hold their own with a customer's Head of Ops or CFO, and design a solution that a real business will run on - not someone waiting for the Account Executive to hand them a slide deck and a time slot. We want the Sales Engineer who unlocked the deal, not the one who showed up at stage three. What this role isn't - Not the right fit if you need an established playbook and tight guardrails from day one. The motion is actively evolving, and you'll have the chance to shape it. - Not a demo-only seat. Demos are part of the work, but only a part. The deeper technical and strategic side is where most of the time goes. - Not a role where you're done the moment the contract is signed. Customer Success and Solutions Engineering take the lead post-sale, but you stay accountable for what you promised during the sale, and available when they need you. What that means in practice: - You'll work side-by-side with Account Executives as a genuine deal co-owner - not a demo resource pulled in and pulled out. - Your fingerprints will be on the Sales Engineering playbook, the proof-of-concept standard, the integration story, the way we qualify technical fit at speed. - The deals you close and the patterns you spot will directly shape what Product ships next. - You'll be one of a small group of senior Sales Engineers at the point where the motion goes from "working" to "compounding" - the kind of career moment you look back on. - You'll run this seat with an AI-native toolkit as the default way of working, not a novelty bolted on top. Discovery synthesis, demo-environment builds, technical drafting, proof-of-concept scaffolding - work that used to take days now takes hours. That's not a productivity footnote - it's the actual mechanism behind speed and mass customisation, the two things a medium-touch motion lives or dies on. The difference between running two deals a quarter and running five in parallel. The difference between handing a prospect a generic demo and handing them something that looks purpose-built for their stack - because with AI doing the scaffolding, it basically was. What you'll own - Technical co-ownership of Advantage deals across the sales cycle from qualified opportunity through close, alongside your Account Executive partner. You share the number. - Proofs-of-concept and pilots that reflect real customer workflows, increasingly built with AI-assisted tooling, so you can stand up a scenario using a prospect's actual data and processes in hours, not days. You define scope, success criteria, and the handoff to Customer Success. A technical win is a measurable thing, not a vibe. - The integration story: Shopify, QuickBooks and Xero, EDI, WMS, our API. How Katana fits into a real manufacturer's stack, and where it doesn't (yet). - Deal strategy on multi-stakeholder opportunities. You co-own the outcome, not just the technical questions. - A real feedback loop into Product and Engineering on what's blocking deals, what's showing up in proofs-of-concept, where the wall is. Your input shapes the roadmap. - The Sales Engineering playbook as it scales, including how AI tooling gets built into how we work from day one, not tacked on later. Some of this exists, a lot of it doesn't yet. You'll shape and build the pieces that are missing. What we're looking for - You've done this many times before as a Sales Engineer, Solutions Consultant, or Solutions Architect - in B2B SaaS, selling to the people who actually run the business: Operations, Supply Chain, Commerce, Finance, IT. - A track record of technical wins on $15–50k deals in a medium-touch, high-velocity motion: running multiple in parallel, not two enterprise deals a quarter. You've owned discovery, proofs-of-concept, technical success criteria, multi-stakeholder objections, the handoff to Customer Success. You share the number. - You think like the buyer. You've run, supported, or sold into inventory, WMS, ERP, e-commerce, or order management - enough to talk serialisation or reorder points with a Head of Operations without translating. - You use AI as day-to-day leverage, not a demo trick. Proof-of-concept scaffolding, demo environments against a prospect's actual stack, discovery synthesis, technical proposal drafting. Work that used to take days now takes hours because you've built the muscle. Fluent enough with APIs, integrations, and data models to read the docs, spin up a test environment, and pressure-test a scenario without hand-holding. - Enjoys being the sharpest technical person in the room without needing to be the loudest voice in the room. - Wired to build, not just execute. You notice the gap and close it. If you're the person on your current team already pushing this, frustrated that the org around you moves slower than the tools allow, this is the seat built for that instinct. What good looks like at 90 days - You’re a Katana product expert. You know our ICP, the common technical and business problems they face, and you help them solve them. You’ve developed strong working relationships with our Product, Support, and Build teams. - You’ve run double-digit Solution Design sessions with Core Plan customers and reps and helped close multiple Core deals - You’ve conducted multiple Advantage technical discoveries, solved for the gaps with AI, partners, and Katana FDEs, built multiple custom solution specifications, and helped close your first Advantage deals. What good looks like at 3-6 months - You're the requested technical partner on top-tier Advantage deals. Account Executives ask for you by name. - Your proof-of-concept-to-closed-won rate is measurably better than the baseline you inherit. - Product Managers reference your input in roadmap conversations. - The Sales Engineering playbook has evolved because you built the pieces that were missing, including how AI-assisted workflows let you, and the Sales Engineers who follow, move faster than the old playbook allowed. What we offer - Competitive, market-aligned base salary plus variable - Employee Stock Option Program - you share in what you build - Time off that's genuinely encouraged: statutory annual leave aligned with local requirements, with a global minimum of 4 weeks, 3 paid health days annually, and your birthday off - because it should actually feel like a day off - Fully paid 1-month sabbatical + 1,000 EUR travel budget after every four years at Katana - time to reset, explore, or focus on personal growth - Home office stipend to help you create a setup that works for you - Health & wellness package through Sun Life - Modern tools and tech, including AI-enabled tools that help you work smarter and stay focused on high-impact work. Automated Screening & AI Disclosure: We use automated tools including AI to help review applications and filter candidates. Final decisions are always made by people. If you're in a place that requires it, we'll ask your consent. Ask us anytime about what this means.