Sales Engineer — Technical Discovery, Solutioning & Consultative Sales in Buffalo Grove, Illinois at Paragon Micro Incorporated

Paragon Micro is seeking a highly consultative, technically sophisticated Sales Engineer to partner with our sales organization in helping customers understand, evaluate, and adopt our technology solutions.

As a Sales Engineer, you are a trusted technical & business advisor; understanding the customer's business objectives & technical environment, uncovering pain points and requirements, shaping the appropriate solution, designing tailored experiences, & demonstrating how the proposed solution can deliver the desired business outcome.

The ideal candidate combines strong technical depth with business acumen, soft consultative selling skills, solution architecture capabilities, and exceptional communication. You should be comfortable moving fluidly between conversations with engineers, architects, IT leaders, business stakeholders, and executive decisionmakers.

You will work closely with Account Executives, Product, Engineering and other cross-functional teams to develop compelling, customer-specific solutions and help drive opportunities from initial discovery through technical validation and close.

Key Responsibilities

Technical & Business Discovery. Lead and participate in structured discovery conversations to develop a deep understanding of the customer's environment, challenges, objectives, and buying criteria.

• Conducting technical discovery sessions with prospects, customers, architects, developers, IT teams, security teams, and business stakeholders.
• Understanding the customer's current technology environment, architecture, workflows, systems, integrations, data, processes, and operational challenges.
• Identifying business pain points and translating them into technical requirements.
• Understanding the customer's strategic priorities, business drivers, desired outcomes, and measures of success.
• Uncovering the underlying issue over responding to the customer's stated requirement.
• Identifying technical, operational, organizational, security, compliance, and integration considerations that may affect the solution.
• Understanding the customer's current-state environment and helping define a practical future-state architecture.
• Identifying gaps, risks & potential implementation challenges early in the sales cycle
• Understanding stakeholder priorities and tailoring the technical conversation to different audiences.
• Asking thoughtful, consultative questions that help customers articulate problems and opportunities they may not have fully defined.

Solution Architecture & Solutioning. Translate discovery findings into practical, scalable, and differentiated solutions that address the customer's specific needs.

• Designing solutions based on customer requirements, business objectives, and technical constraints.
• Developing high-level solution architectures, integration, and technical designs.
• Determining how products, platforms, APIs, services, and capabilities should be configured or combined to address customer requirements.
• Mapping customer pain points and requirements to specific solution capabilities.
• Identifying opportunities to expand solution based on adjacent customer needs.
• Developing technical approaches for complex or non-standard use cases.
• Partnering with Product and Engineering when customer requirements require product enhancements, custom capabilities, or technical validation.
• Evaluating solution feasibility and identifying technical risks before they become sales-cycle blockers.
• Creating solution proposals that balance customer requirements, technical feasibility, implementation complexity, and business value.
• Clearly communicating architectural trade-offs and recommendations.

Custom Demonstrations & Technical Storytelling. Create and deliver highly customized demonstrations that reflect the customer's environment, priorities, use cases, and desired business outcomes.

• Developing demonstration strategies based on discovery findings.
• Designing demos around customer-specific workflows and use cases rather than delivering generic product tours.
• Building customized demo environments, configurations, workflows, prototypes, or proof-of-concepts when appropriate.
• Demonstrating how the proposed solution fits into the customer's existing technology ecosystem.
• Connecting technical capabilities directly to business outcomes.
• Creating persona-specific demonstrations for technical, operational, financial, and executive audiences.
• Delivering technical deep dives for architects and engineers.
• Delivering value-oriented presentations for business leaders and executives.
• Anticipating technical questions and objections during demonstrations.
• Adjusting the demonstration dynamically based on customer areas of interest.
• Using storytelling & visualization to make technical concepts easy to understand
• Demonstrating differentiated capabilities relative to competing solutions or the customer's existing approach.

Consultative Selling & Customer Engagement. A trusted advisor.

• Developing credibility and trusted relationships with customer stakeholders.
• Applying consultative selling principles throughout the sales process.
• Helping customers define problems, evaluate alternatives, and develop an actionable technology strategy.
• Challenging assumptions respectfully when a different approach may better address the customer's objectives.
• Connecting technical recs to business priorities & measurable outcomes.
• Helping customers understand the implications of different solution options.
• Facilitating technical and business conversations among diverse stakeholders.
• Influencing customer decision criteria through education, insight, and demonstrated expertise.
• Understanding the customer's buying process, evaluation criteria, decision structure, and business case.
• Helping customers build internal alignment around the proposed solution.
• Identify & address technical objections before they become commercial obstacles
• Supporting the AE in developing a compelling overall value proposition.

Business Acumen & Value Selling. Bring a strong understanding of how technology decisions translate into business outcomes.

• Understanding the customer's business model, industry, environment, & priorities.
• Connecting technical capabilities to business outcomes such as revenue growth, cost reduction, productivity, risk reduction, operational efficiency, customer experience, or scalability.
• Quantifying or articulating the potential business impact of the proposed solution.
• Helping customers develop the business case for technology investment.
• Understand financial & commercial considerations that influence decisions
• Communicating technical value in terms that resonate with executives and business stakeholders.
• Understanding the difference between a technical requirement and a true business requirement.
• Identifying opportunities where technology can enable broader business transformation.
• Partnering with Account Executives to develop value-based sales strategies.
• Supporting ROI, TCO, business-case, and competitive discussions where appropriate.

Technical Validation, POCs & Evaluations

• Defining technical evaluation criteria with the customer.
• Designing and executing proof-of-concepts and technical validations.
• Establishing success criteria before beginning a POC.
• Building prototypes or technical demonstrations when required.
• Troubleshooting technical issues during evaluations.
• Coordinating resources across Engineering, Product, Security, and other teams.
• Documenting technical findings and recommendations.
• Ensuring technical requirements are clearly understood before commercial commitment.
• Helping customers move confidently from evaluation to implementation.

End-to-End Sales Cycle Responsibilities. You will contribute throughout the entire customer journey:

Discovery. Understand the customer's business, technical environment, pain points, objectives, stakeholders, and success criteria.

Qualification. Determine technical fit, solution feasibility, urgency, complexity, competitive environment, and potential risks.

Solution Design. Translate requirements into a recommended solution architecture and approach.

Custom Demo. Build and deliver a tailored demonstration that reflects the customer's priorities and use cases.

Technical Evaluation. Lead or support POCs, technical validation, security reviews, architecture discussions, and integrations.

Business Case. Connect the technical solution to business outcomes, value, ROI, efficiency, risk, and strategic objectives.

Objection Handling. Address technical concerns and help stakeholders understand trade-offs and alternatives.

Decision Support. Help the customer evaluate the solution and build internal consensus.

Close & Handoff. Ensure technical expectations are clearly documented and communicated to implementation and Customer Success teams.

• 4+ years of experience in Sales Engineering, Solutions Engineering, Solutions Architecture, Technical Consulting, Product Engineering, or a comparable customer-facing technical role.
• Strong understanding of enterprise technology and solution architecture.
• Demonstrated experience leading technical discovery with customers.
• Experience designing customer-specific solutions and architectures.
• Experience developing and delivering customized technical demonstrations.
• Strong understanding of APIs, integrations, cloud technologies, data, software platforms, and enterprise architectures.
• Ability to translate business requirements into technical solutions.
• Strong business acumen and understanding of how technology investments support business objectives.
• Excellent presentation, communication, and storytelling skills.
• Ability to communicate effectively with both highly technical and executive audiences.
• Strong consultative problem-solving approach.
• Ability to manage multiple opportunities and priorities in a fast-paced sales environment.
• Experience working collaboratively with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Customer Success teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience selling complex SaaS, cloud, enterprise software, data, AI, cybersecurity, infrastructure, or technology platforms.
• Experience supporting enterprise and strategic accounts.
• Experience with technical POCs and complex evaluations.
• Experience creating solution architectures and technical designs.
• Familiarity with CRM and sales methodologies.
• Experience with APIs, SQL, scripting, Python, JavaScript, or similar technologies.
• Experience presenting to C-level executives and senior technology leaders.
• Experience in value-based or consultative selling.
• Industry-specific expertise relevant to the company's target market.

Core Competencies

Technical Depth: You understand complex technology, architecture, integrations, and technical requirements and translate them into practical solutions.

Business Acumen: You understand how customers operate, how they make investment decisions, and how technology can create measurable business value.

Consultative Mindset: You approach customer engagements by asking questions, diagnosing problems, challenging assumptions, and recommending solutions rather than simply selling products.