Sales Engineer Lead

DescriptionAs the Sales Engineer Lead at ZeroKey, you will own the technical side of how we win. Reporting to the Director of Global Sales, you'll lead pre-sales engineering across our most important opportunities and build the sales engineering practice itself, including the demos, playbooks, tools, and eventually the team. You will play an integral role from first technical discovery through solution design, live demonstrations, pilot deployments, and the handoff to Customer Success. The role calls for deep technical credibility in industrial environments, composure when the demo is live and the room is skeptical, and the builder's instinct to turn every win into a repeatable motion. You are the engineer buyers trust and reps fight to get into their deals, and you'd rather prove a claim on the customer's floor than assert it on a slide.
Location and Work Model
This role is based on-site at our Calgary headquarters and manufacturing facility, where you'll have direct access to our hardware, demo environments, and the engineering team, balanced with significant travel to customer sites worldwide. Relocation support may be available for exceptional candidates.
Key Responsibilities

• Lead technical discovery on qualified opportunities: map the customer's process, environment, and integration landscape to the right ZeroKey solution.
• Design solution architectures for customer sites (coverage planning, anchor and mobile placement, infrastructure requirements, and integration approach) that deployment teams can execute as designed.
• Deliver compelling product demonstrations at our Calgary HQ, on customer floors, and at industry events, tuned to each audience from plant engineers to executives.
• Scope, run, and land pilot deployments: set success criteria up front, execute cleanly, and deliver results the customer's own stakeholders will champion internally.
• Own technical responses to RFPs, RFIs, and security/IT reviews, with accuracy that survives procurement scrutiny.
• Partner with sales reps and channel partners as the technical lead on deals, and enable partner engineers to represent the product correctly.
• Work with Product Management and Engineering to pressure-test roadmap decisions against real deals, and relay field-discovered gaps, edge cases, and integration needs.
• Build the sales engineering practice: demo environments and kits, evaluation playbooks, sizing and proposal tools, and reference architectures.
• Support the transition of closed deals to the Customer Success and Deployment teams with complete, accurate technical documentation.
• Hire, mentor, and develop sales engineers as the team grows.
• Stay current on RTLS, positioning, industrial integration (MES, PLC, robotics), and industrial AI developments to keep our technical sales motion ahead of the market.

Skills, Knowledge and ExpertiseEducation and Experience:

• A Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Computer Science, or a related technical field is required.
• At least 7 years of experience in sales engineering, solutions engineering, or field applications engineering with complex technical products, including industrial or hardware-inclusive solutions.

Requirements:

• A proven track record of technical wins in long-cycle, multi-stakeholder B2B sales.
• Comfortable working hands-on in manufacturing environments: plant floors, IT/OT constraints, safety protocols, and the realities of complex installations.
• Working fluency with integration technologies: REST APIs, networking fundamentals, and scripting (e.g., Python) for demos and proofs of concept.
• Willingness to travel significantly to customer sites, including internationally.
• Excellent problem-solving skills and the ability to work collaboratively in a team environment.
• Strong communication skills to effectively convey complex concepts to technical and non-technical stakeholders.

Considered an asset:

• Experience with RTLS, positioning, sensors, machine vision, or industrial automation.
• Experience integrating with MES, ERP, PLC/SCADA, or robotics systems.
• Experience building or leading a pre-sales function.

Benefits

• Stock options
• Extended health, dental, and vision care, plus life and disability insurance
• Paid time off, on-site parking at our Calgary HQ, and casual dress
• Company events and a team that is genuinely fun to work with