--- title: "What Do Employers Want When Hiring Solutions and Sales Engineers?" description: "MORT Role Insights, July 2026: across 100 postings, employers hiring solutions and sales engineers want technical pre-sales and demos, not production code." canonical: "https://mortit.com/blog/what-employers-want-solutions-engineers" --- Insights # What Do Employers Want When Hiring Solutions and Sales Engineers? We read 100 live postings from 100 companies. The job is technical pre-sales: discovery and demos in front of customers, not production code. 10 min read Updated July 2026 By [Arash Abdollahi](https://mortit.com/about), Founder Published by [MORT](https://mortit.com/) Updated July 2026 TL;DR **Employers hiring solutions and sales engineers want proof you can run technical pre-sales, not write production code.** In MORT's July 2026 analysis of 100 live postings, requirements discovery appears in 89 and solution scoping in 85. It is a mid-career role (median ask 5 years) with a low credential bar: 51 of 100 postings never mention a degree. Python, a cloud platform, and APIs are the demo toolkit. Sales engineer and solutions engineer job descriptions can read like software engineering roles, so it is easy to prepare for the wrong thing. We looked at what employers are actually asking for. In July 2026 we read 100 live sales and solutions engineer job postings, one from each of 100 different companies, and structured every one. The short version: this is a technical pre-sales job. Employers are buying your ability to run discovery and demos in front of customers, not your ability to ship production code. It is also one of the most open doors in tech. Solutions and sales engineering is the most employer-diverse role we have measured: the 100 postings were drawn from 1,834 active listings spread across 814 hiring companies, and the top five employers held just 9.8% of them. There is no single gatekeeper, and, as you will see, no degree requirement for most roles. ## The job is discovery and demos, not code Across the 100 postings, the core responsibilities cluster tightly around pre-sales work. Requirements discovery appears in 89 of them and solution scoping in 85, with an explicit pre-sales motion named in 66. Stakeholder management shows up in 49 and executive-level communication in 28. | What the posting asks for | Postings (of 100) | | --- | --- | | Requirements discovery | 89 | | Solution scoping | 85 | | Explicit pre-sales motion | 66 | | Stakeholder management | 49 | | Executive-level communication | 28 | Counts of the 100 postings mentioning each responsibility. MORT Role Insights, July 2026. Twilio's posting is the archetype: **"The Solutions Engineer leads the technical pre-sales relationship, proposes technical architectures, demonstrates the product."** Braze compresses the whole job into one line: "Run pre-sales end-to-end on major accounts: discovery, solution design, demos, POVs." ## It is a mid-career role with a low degree bar The typical experience ask is **5 years**. That is the median across the 78 postings that state a number, and the most common asks are 3 and 5 years. Seniority skews senior: of the 100 postings, 51 are pitched at senior level, 29 at mid, and only 11 at junior. Formal credentials matter far less than proof of customer-facing technical work. **51 of the 100 postings never mention a degree at all, and only 21 require one.** The backgrounds employers name most often are solutions or sales engineering itself, enterprise SaaS, technical consulting, and technical account management. Those are the adjacent on-ramps. ## Nearly half the market is remote, but you still travel Solutions and sales engineering is the most remote-friendly customer-facing role we have measured: of the 100 postings, **48 are remote, 25 hybrid, and 27 onsite.** The catch is travel. 75 of the 100 postings mention it (58 as "some" travel, 17 as frequent). ACS Motion Control is blunt about it: "Willingness to travel throughout Europe (Approx. 30-50%)." Remote here means working from home between customer visits, not never seeing a customer. ## Python is the demo language, cloud is the demo stage You do need technical depth, but to demonstrate, not to build product. Among programming languages, **Python leads at 28 mentions**, well ahead of JavaScript (10), Java (9), and SQL (7). Among platforms and technologies, APIs top the list at 23, followed by AWS (19), Azure (18), Google Cloud (15), Kubernetes (13), and REST (13). | Skill | Type | Postings (of 100) | | --- | --- | --- | | Python | Language | 28 | | JavaScript | Language | 10 | | Java | Language | 9 | | SQL | Language | 7 | | APIs | Technology | 23 | | AWS | Technology | 19 | | Azure | Technology | 18 | | Google Cloud | Technology | 15 | | Kubernetes | Technology | 13 | | REST | Technology | 13 | Counts of the 100 postings mentioning each language or technology, listed by group as the report records them. MORT Role Insights, July 2026. You are not shipping features with these. You are building proofs of concept and integrations live in front of buyers. Port asks solutions engineers to lead "technical Proofs of Concept (POCs)," and Axonius wants people "executing product demonstrations and managing proof-of-value engagements." ## AI has reached about a third of the role AI has arrived, but the asks are still shallow. **35 of the 100 postings are AI-touched:** 22 AI-adjacent, 9 building LLM solutions, and 4 in core machine learning. Talkdesk wants solutions engineers who "act as a trusted consultant and AI thought leader for our most strategic customers." The specific AI asks (agentic workflows, MCP, AI coding assistants) each appear only once or twice, which means a candidate who can credibly demo an LLM integration today is ahead of the posting language, not behind it. For the wider picture on how AI is reshaping sales roles, see [are sales jobs safe from AI in 2026](https://mortit.com/blog/are-sales-jobs-safe-from-ai-2026). ## Cybersecurity is the biggest vertical buyer Of the 70 postings with an identifiable industry, **cybersecurity and security lead with about 14**, ahead of fintech (6), manufacturing (3), and semiconductor (2). Security products are technical, high value, and sold to skeptical technical buyers, which is exactly where a strong solutions engineer changes the outcome. Zenity's posting shows the shape: "Lead technical discovery to understand customer environments, risks, and existing security and development tooling." ## Titles lie, so read the description Here is the trap. When we sampled the market, **60 of 160 postings carrying Solutions Engineer, Application Engineer, or Integration Engineer titles actually described internal platform work, post-sales implementation, or even field service**, not pre-sales. We excluded them from this analysis, but for a job seeker they are the whole point: the title tells you little. The words discovery, demo, PoC, and quota-carrying team tell you everything. #### How to read a solutions engineer posting Ignore the title. Scan the body for "pre-sales," "PoC," "demo," and "quota-carrying team." If they are there, it is a customer-facing pre-sales role. If the words are "implementation," "support tickets," or "internal tooling," it is a different job wearing the same title. The same blurring is why an adjacent role, the forward deployed engineer, is worth understanding on its own terms. If you are weighing the two, here is [what employers want from forward deployed engineers](https://mortit.com/blog/what-employers-want-forward-deployed-engineers). ## Pay, where it is stated Only 34 of the 100 postings state salary, so treat this as a partial picture. Across those 34, all in US dollars per year, the **median band runs from $128,000 to $172,500, with a median midpoint of $154,000.** Set against a 5-year median experience ask and a low degree bar, that is one of the strongest experience-to-pay ratios in tech-adjacent roles. ## The candidate playbook If you want one of these roles, here is what the data says to do. 1 #### Build one public demo asset A recorded 15-minute discovery-to-demo walkthrough of a real product beats a resume line. The job is the demo, so show it. 2 #### Lead with customer-facing evidence Numbers of PoCs run, evaluation win rates, deal sizes supported. 89% of employers screen for discovery skill, so make yours concrete rather than a job title. 3 #### Learn the demo stack Python plus one cloud platform plus APIs and REST gets you demo depth. Add Kubernetes familiarity for infrastructure products. 4 #### Add an LLM-integration demo now About a third of the market is AI-touched and the asks are still shallow, so a candidate who can credibly demo an LLM integration today is ahead of the posting language. It is the cheapest differentiation available. 5 #### Filter postings by description, not title Search the body for pre-sales, PoC, and demo. The title alone tells you little about whether the role is really pre-sales. 6 #### Coming from support, TAM, or implementation? Those are the named adjacent backgrounds. Reframe your experience around discovery and value narration, not ticket resolution. ## How to line your evidence up to each posting Because the title tells you so little, applying well for these roles is a reading-and-matching problem. You have to read each description, work out whether it is really pre-sales, and line up your customer-facing evidence against what that specific posting asks for. That is slow to do by hand across dozens of listings. This is where MORT fits. MORT is an AI job-matching platform for people who want to apply to more relevant jobs in less time. It scans thousands of company career pages, scores every job 0-100% for compatibility with your skills and experience, and generates a tailored resume (a CV, if you are in the UK) for each application. For a role where the same title covers pre-sales, post-sales, and field service, a fit score that reads the description is doing exactly the filtering the data says you need. MORT surfaces and scores the roles and tailors the resume; you still decide where to apply. If you would rather do the matching by hand, our guide on [how to match your resume to job descriptions](https://mortit.com/blog/how-to-match-your-resume-to-jobs) walks through it. ## Frequently asked questions ### Do you need a degree to become a sales engineer or solutions engineer? Usually not. In MORT Role Insights, July 2026, an analysis of 100 live postings, 51 never mention a degree and only 21 require one. Employers hire proof of customer-facing technical work over credentials. The median experience ask is 5 years, across the 78 postings that state a number. ### Do solutions engineers need to know how to code? Some coding helps, but to demonstrate, not to ship product. Python is the most-mentioned language, in 28 of the 100 postings, ahead of JavaScript (10), Java (9), and SQL (7). The work is building proofs of concept and integrations live in front of buyers, not writing production features. ### Are solutions engineer and sales engineer jobs remote? Often. Of the 100 postings in MORT Role Insights, July 2026, 48 are remote, 25 hybrid, and 27 onsite, the most remote-friendly customer-facing role we have measured. But 75 of the 100 mention travel (58 some, 17 frequent), so remote here means working from home between customer visits. ### How much do sales engineers and solutions engineers make? Of the 34 postings that state pay (all US dollars, per year) in MORT Role Insights, July 2026, the median band runs from $128,000 to $172,500, with a median midpoint of $154,000. Only 34 of the 100 postings state salary, so treat this as a partial picture. ### What is the difference between the titles solutions engineer, sales engineer, and application engineer? Very little separates them on paper. When we sampled the market, 60 of 160 postings carrying Solutions Engineer, Application Engineer, or Integration Engineer titles actually described internal platform work, post-sales implementation, or even field service, not pre-sales. Read the body for the words discovery, demo, and PoC, because the title tells you little. ## Find the pre-sales roles you actually fit MORT reads the description, not just the title, scores every job 0-100% for how well it fits your skills and experience, and generates a tailored resume for each application. Spend your time on the solutions and sales engineer roles where you are a real match. [Start Free](https://app.mortit.com/signup) [How AI Job Matching Works](https://mortit.com/features/ai-job-matching) ## Related Resources ### [What Employers Want From Forward Deployed Engineers](https://mortit.com/blog/what-employers-want-forward-deployed-engineers) The adjacent technical-customer role, by the numbers ### [How to Match Your Resume to Job Descriptions](https://mortit.com/blog/how-to-match-your-resume-to-jobs) The step-by-step way to tailor for a specific posting ### [Software Engineer Interview Questions](https://mortit.com/blog/software-engineer-interview-questions) Coding and system design prep for technical rounds ### [Are Sales Jobs Safe From AI in 2026?](https://mortit.com/blog/are-sales-jobs-safe-from-ai-2026) What the hiring data says about sales roles and AI ## About the data All figures here are MORT's own first-party data from live job postings, not external estimates. MORT Role Insights, July 2026. Based on 100 live job postings from 100 distinct companies (one posting per company, with multi-city cross-posts deduplicated), in the Sales and Solutions Engineer category. We read and structured each posting individually. Coverage skews toward roles posted on the major ATS platforms MORT indexes (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and similar), so very large enterprises hiring on Workday or iCIMS are under-represented. Pay figures cover only the 34 postings that state salary.