Strategic Sales Engineer

Position Title: Strategic Sales Engineer

Department: Sales Engineering

Reports To: Sales Practice Lead

Location: West Coast USA (Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles) - Remote

Employment Type: Full-Time

About the Role

Avant is moving Engineering from a technical-support function to an integrated sales growth engine. The Strategic Sales Engineer is the regional technical sales leader in that model — embedded with the regional Sales organization and accountable, alongside Channel Directors and Sales leadership, for helping Trusted Advisors (TAs) create, develop, and win more opportunities. This is a generalist role: broad technical range across the categories Avant sells, paired with the relationship and sales instincts to operate as a full member of the regional sales team.

Employees located in the Greater Chicagoland Area or Dallas/Frisco area are currently expected to work from the office 1 day per week; however, this is subject to change.  

Key Responsibilities

• Participate fully in weekly regional Sales calls as a standing member of the regional team, not an occasional guest.

• Work shoulder-to-shoulder with every Channel Director and Manager in-region.

• Understand the major TAs in the region's PODs and their growth priorities.

• Field inbound cases, responding in a timely fashion and quickly identifying the right go-forward path. 

• Participate proactively in opportunity strategy and discovery — engage before a technical request comes in, not only after.

• Help create opportunities, not only respond to them.

• Maintain sales campaign momentum: drive next steps, coordinate resources, and remove blockers.

• Coordinate the right National Sales Engineer resources when an opportunity needs specialist depth.

• Translate business needs into technical and vendor strategy.

• Provide market and customer intelligence back into the Engineering organization.

• Share accountability for regional growth alongside regional Sales leadership.

Technical Scope

This is a generalist role. The Strategic Sales Engineer is expected to carry broad, working knowledge across the technology categories Avant sells — not deep expertise in every one of them. Depth beyond a category or two is supported by National Sales Engineers, whom the Strategic SE coordinates into the opportunity when it's needed.

• Connectivity

• Colocation

• Cloud

• Cyber Security

• UCaaS/CCaaS

• CX & AI

Candidates are not expected to be strong in all seven areas on day one — broad, credible fluency across most of them, with real depth in one or two, is the target profile.

The Sales-First Talent Profile

One common talent standard applies across every customer- and TA-facing Engineering role. For the Strategic Sales Engineer — the role most embedded with Sales and closest to the TA day to day — this profile is not a nice-to-have; it is the job:

• Fierce Curiosity — Genuine desire to understand the TA, customer, business problem, and opportunity.

• Exceptional Communication — Listens extremely well, asks strong questions, communicates clearly, and adapts to the audience.

• Confidence to Challenge — Has the credibility and courage to challenge assumptions and respectfully reframe thinking.

• Turns Business Insights into Discovery — Uses business and market insights to uncover customer priorities and opportunities.

• Simplifies the Complex — Translates technical complexity into clear business language.

• Great Storytelling — Makes ideas memorable through examples, analogies, customer stories, and outcomes.

• Builds Trust Quickly — Earns credibility with TAs, customers, Sales, vendors, and internal partners.

• Ridiculously Responsive — Creates confidence through urgency, ownership, preparation, and follow-through.

• Maintains Sales Campaign Momentum — Drives next steps, coordinates resources, removes blockers, and keeps opportunities moving.