Senior Director, Global Solutions Engineering
Job Description
At Algolia, we’re proud to be a pioneer and market leader in AI Search, empowering 17,000+ businesses to deliver blazing-fast, predictive search and browse experiences at internet scale. Every week, we power over 30 billion search requests — four times more than Microsoft Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex, and DuckDuckGo combined.
In 2021, we raised $150 million in Series D funding, quadrupling our valuation to $2.25 billion. This strong foundation enables us to keep investing in our market-leading platform and serving incredible customers like Under Armour, PetSmart, Stripe, Gymshark, and Walgreens.
Algolia is looking for an experienced leader to build, scale, and lead our Global Solutions Engineering organization (30 SEs today across AMER and EMEA). You will lead four Regional Solutions Engineering Managers directly covering AMER, EMEA North, EMEA South, and Channel/SMB with functional oversight of our emerging-markets SE capability across LATAM and APAC. You will scale AE-aligned coverage by segment and drive a shift to consultative selling that maps Algolia's capabilities to measurable customer outcomes through discovery, solution design, quantified ROI, and post-sale optimization in partnership with Customer Success.
Reporting to the SVP of Customer Success and Professional Services, you will lead the operating model, talent strategy, and pre-sales execution for the Solutions Engineering team. Our Solutions Engineers are deep product experts who serve as technical advisors to prospects and customers. They partner closely with sales and customer teams to understand each customers’ search and discovery challenges, translate those needs into compelling technical solutions, and deliver tailored demos that clearly show how Algolia can solve their business problems
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 day-to-day, you will partner with leaders across Customer Success, Revenue, Professional Services, Product, and Engineering to establish short- and long-term goals in established and emerging markets.
We are seeking a leader who will bring strong business acumen, technical expertise, and a passion for data. They will be equally credible with executives and technical teams, and energized by leading a global Solutions Engineering team in a fast-moving, global environment.
YOUR ROLE WILL CONSIST OF
- Leading four Regional Solutions Engineering Managers directly (AMER, EMEA North, EMEA South, Channel/SMB), with matrix functional oversight of emerging-markets SE capability in LATAM and APAC
- Designing and executing the global SE operating model: AE-aligned coverage by segment and a clear career path from IC through senior management
- Partnering with 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
- Owning 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 — for new bookings, expansion, and renewal
- Driving the shift to consultative selling: proactive discovery, solution design mapped to customer outcomes, quantified ROI, and post-sale optimization through Customer Success
- Championing and leveraging AI to drive SE team productivity including AI coding tools, automated demo and PoC generation, and AI-assisted discovery and solution design to accelerate ramp, improve deal velocity, and free SE capacity for high-judgment work
- Strategizing on driving business objectives through our Value Engineering process, which leverages real quantitative customer data
- Partnering with our Demo Engineering team to build 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 proams 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
- Recruiting, developing, and retaining senior SE talent and a strong management bench
- Being a trusted advisor and consultant internally and externally
YOU MIGHT BE A FIT IF YOU HAVE
- 6+ years of leadership experience building and scaling high-performing global Solutions Engineering teams in SaaS, including second-line leadership and oversight of organizations with 20+ team members
- 4 - 6+ years of hands on Solutions Engineer experience, selling to all segments, ranging from SMB/ Mid Market, Enterprise, and Strategic accounts
- Demonstrated success building and leading a multi-layered management structure (managers of managers)
- Strong technical fundamentals with prior developer experience coding in a 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, modern commerce stacks, and AI/search applications
- A proven track record of meeting or exceeding quota in various economic environments
- Experience scaling global teams (both EMEA and AMER) across rapidly growing and emerging markets
- 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 empower teams to solve problems independently while knowing when to step in to provide guidance, remove blockers, or drive alignment
- Willingness to travel (up to 25% of your time)
NICE TO HAVE
- Experience leading SE teams at a scale of $300M–$1B in ARR
- Prior experience in search and/or commerce technology
- Computer Science Master degree
Algolia does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, military status, veteran status, disability status, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by law.
The annual total cash compensation range (base salary and commission) for this role reflects market pay data within this location. The exact compensation offered for this role may vary depending on specific location and job-related knowledge, technical skills, and experience; and is only one part of our Total Rewards philosophy to compensate and recognize employees for their work.
FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE STRATEGY:
Algolia’s flexible workplace model is designed to empower all Algolians to fulfill our mission to power search and discovery with ease. We place an emphasis on an individual’s impact, contribution, and output, over their physical location. Algolia is a high-trust environment and many of our team members have the autonomy to choose where they want to work and when.
We have a global presence with offices in Paris, NYC, London, Sydney and Bucharest, however we also offer many of our team members the option to work remotely either as fully remote or hybrid-remote employees. Positions listed as "Remote" are only available for remote work within the specified country. Positions listed within a specific city are only available in that location - depending on the role it may be available with either a hybrid-remote or in-office schedule.
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.
We’re looking for talented, passionate people to help build the world’s best search and discovery technology. We value autonomy, diversity, and collaboration. We’re committed to creating an inclusive workplace where everyone is respected and supported—regardless of race, age, ancestry, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital status, color, veteran status, disability, or socioeconomic background.
IMPORTANT NOTICE FOR CANDIDATES - Recruitment Fraud Notice
We’ve recently seen an increase in recruitment scams targeting job seekers. To help protect yourself, please keep the following in mind:
- Our open positions may appear on third-party job boards, but the best way to apply safely is directly through our careers page.
- All genuine communication from Algolia will come from an @algolia.com email address. If you receive an email from someone claiming to work at Algolia who does not have an @algolia.com email address, please do not respond or share any personal information.
- We’ll never ask for payments, purchases, or financial details during the hiring process.
READY TO APPLY?
If you share our values and our enthusiasm for building the world’s best search & discovery technology, we’d love to review your application!