Senior Director, Global Solutions Engineering

Candidate must be based in Eastern or Central time zone and willing to work Eastern hours. Role will be leveled at either the Director or Senior Director level, depending on candidate experience. 

Algolia is looking for an experienced leader to join us to lead our Global Solutions Engineering Team (25+ people today), reporting to the VP of Professional Services. The Solutions Engineering team collaborates with Algolia users to understand their business challenges, architect and develop solutions, and serve as technical advisors throughout their journey with Algolia. We are deep subject matter experts on Algolia’s products and services and use this knowledge to help our prospects, customers and users solve real world problems through code, advice and content.

This is a unique opportunity for someone who wants to help Algolia enable our prospects and customers to build consumer-grade search by leading a team of passionate experts. In addition to managing the team on a daily basis, you’ll be responsible for partnering together with different teams in Customer Success and across the company to establish short and long-term goals in established and emerging markets.

You will need to have relevant technical expertise and a strong business mindset as well as the ability to articulate technical concepts clearly, as the SEs work with various stakeholders ranging from CTOs to Software Engineers and CEOs to Merchandisers. The ideal candidate will combine a solid mix of management and business experience with technical knowledge, as well as a passion for data and modern leadership. This role requires a deep understanding of our technically complex product and the responsibilities of a Solutions Engineer in a fast growing international environment. 

YOUR ROLE WILL CONSIST OF:

• Leading 6 direct reports spanning globally
• Partnering with other global leaders in Customer Success, Revenue, R&D, Engineering, and others to drive KPIs and achieve OKRs
• Developing the SE teams to facilitate technical storytelling and drive the narrative during our pre-sales cycle
• Accountability for all aspects of the technical evaluation starting in the discovery stage (SS2), progressing through evaluation (SS3), and all the way to business close
• Collaborating with internal and external stakeholders:
• Strategizing on driving business objectives through our Value Engineering process which leverages real quantitative customer data
• Partnering with our Demo Engineering team to build out compelling examples that showcase what our technology has to offer and prove out ROI
• Supporting quarterly quota attainment by achieving technical wins on net new business
• Implementing best practices and data driven programs to improve results including win rates, sales cycle, product adoption as well as the efficiency of our revenue support functions
• Enforcing operational best practices on the team by maintaining consistent communication with customers and partnering with account teams to accurately forecast technical wins
• Being a trusted advisor and consultant internally and externall

YOU MIGHT BE A FIT IF YOU HAVE:

• Minimum 4+ years of building and leading high performing global SE teams in SaaS with 20+ reports in the organization
• 3-5 years of experience working as an SE selling to all segments ranging from SMB through ENT and Strategic
• Strong technical fundamentals with prior developer experience coding in high level programming language such as JavaScript, Java, Python, or similar
• A deep understanding of web technologies and architecting various ecosystems to build scalable solutions
• Working knowledge of Headless solutions and architecture
• A proven track record of meeting or exceeding quota in various economic environments
• Experience with scaling global teams among a rapidly growing and emerging markets
• A interest in learning new technologies and figuring out solutions that propel businesses forward
• Willingness to travel (up to 25% of your time)
• Excellent communication and presentation skills (able to communicate with confidence at the C-suite level to be an advocate for the team)
• A passion for leading by example and encouraging a healthy work environment that is both supportive and challenging
• Experience at our current stage and beyond (over 17,000 customers, $200-300M ARR range, high growth, lots of change and building internal infrastructure)
• You know when to let a team work through problems and when to jump in to help

NICE TO HAVE:

• 6+ years of experience in managing global SE teams in SaaS
• Prior experience in search technology
• Second-line leadership experience
• Experience in leading SE teams at a scale of $2B+ in ARR
• Experience working with start-ups
• Computer Science Master degree

WE’RE LOOKING FOR SOMEONE WHO CAN LIVE OUR VALUES:

• GRIT - Problem-solving and perseverance capability in an ever-changing and growing environment
• TRUST - Willingness to trust our co-workers and to take ownership 
• CANDOR - Ability to receive and give constructive feedback.
• CARE - Genuine care about other team members, our clients and the decisions we make in the company.
• HUMILITY- Aptitude for learning from others, putting ego aside.

 #LI-Hybrid #LI-Remote