Pre-Sales & Solution Engineer

Job Description

Location: Remote (UK), preferably near London as meetings in our London office will be required from time to time.

Ably is a tech company that provides developer tools and infrastructure for the realtime internet. Chatting on WhatsApp, hailing an Uber, asking Alexa what the weather will be like tomorrow - all of these things rely on complex software and infrastructure. This is what Ably provides.

Here are just a few things our platform powers: HubSpot’s chat and collaboration products, live score updates for millions of Australian Open tennis fans, and live transit updates for three million Chicagoans.

In the near future, Autonomous Vehicles, IoT devices (e.g. connected fridges or environment sensors), and AI-powered experiences will be the norm. But new infrastructure is required to power it all.

The opportunity in front of us is immense. Our mission is to become the definitive realtime infrastructure of the internet while powering and accelerating the emerging ecosystem. We’re on track. Today we deliver billions of realtime messages to more than 50 million people across web, mobile, and IoT platforms. But we can’t rest yet. In five years we want to reach one billion people everyday.

To see what life’s like at Ably, check out our careers page at www.ably.io/careers

Requirements

In this role

As a Pre-Sales Solution Engineer, you will act as a trusted advisor to prospective customers. You will be working closely with the Sales team, who will rely on your technical and product expertise throughout the sales cycle. You will be an integral part of the success for both Ably and our customers by conducting technical exploration and qualification, providing architectural / integration advice, delivering product demonstrations and PoCs, and resolving technical configuration issues. 

As a passionate technologist and Ably advocate, you will connect the dots between our technical solution and the business value for the customer. 

Through your conversations with prospects and clients, you will also play a key role connecting market feedback and insight to our Product Management team.

As a Pre-sales Solution Engineer you’ll support the continued growth of Ably and will play a key role in shaping our success. 

What you'll be doing:

• Drive all technical aspects of Ably’s value proposition in our sales opportunities to clearly communicate and sell the value of Ably’s products and solutions.
• Maintain close alignment with Sales, Customer Success, and Product Engineering.
• Provide and present product demonstrations including advanced product features and benefits specific to customer requirements.
• Respond to prospect RFPs and RFIs.
• Assist the sales team in identifying sales opportunities.
• Build and deliver custom demonstrations and proof of concepts
• Properly understand our customers’ and prospects' technical architecture so as to communicate it back to the business.
• Translate customer, prospect, and partner business needs into technical needs and interpret advanced technology issues in an accessible language.
• Provide assistance in the distribution of new product information, application workshops and solution strategies for the sales team.
• Work with the potential customers to help plan, scope, develop and deploy Ably's solutions.
• Take a leadership role in ensuring successful customer implementations of Ably solutions.

It would be great if you:

• Have an engineer or developer background.
• Have between 4 to 8 years of experience within software pre-sales engineering.
• Demonstrate a good code culture and understand the functioning of a modern technical architecture.
• Are an analytical thinker with the ability to translate complex business needs into feasible, valuable solutions.
• Have a desire to develop Presales and Sales knowledge as well as customer facing and demonstration skills.
• Are curious and intellectually agile, ingenious in project management, you enjoy solving issues and use high energy to reach your goals.
• Are ambitious and willing to take on increasing responsibilities as Ably grows.
• Have a positive attitude and collaborative work style, in adherence with Ably's values.
• Have the ability to work in a fast-paced start-up environment where a high level of flexibility is required.
• Have great communication skills - most of our customers are based in the US, so you’ll need to have a good command of the English language. 

What’s it like to work at Ably?

Founded by two engineers who spotted a hard and largely unsolved problem, Ably is, at its heart, an engineering company. To provide the infrastructure required for a high-bandwidth, always-connected world, we hire engineers with a broad set of technical skills who are ready and capable of taking on challenging realtime engineering problems.

To provide the infrastructure required for the next generation of the internet, to tell the world about it, and to support everyone inside Ably to do so, we hire people who are ready and capable of taking on challenging problems in a high-growth environment.

We want to work in a company of inclusive people who treat each other well. To really thrive at Ably, you’ll need to believe in and be prepared to do your work in line with what we value, which is:

• Open for all. Open is a mindset. When open, we’re better collaborators, communicators and creators. Whether open source, standards, or protocols, open hearts, minds, and eyes. It’s better when it’s open.
• Bias for action. We avoid analysis paralysis at all costs. We lean into doing in order to move us forward. When we have enough of what we need to act, we act.
• Even the best do better. We want to be the best - but that doesn’t mean we rest when we are. Improvement and growth - true betterment - is an ongoing journey. One fuelled by curiosity and taking risks.
• Technology needs humanity. Our technology means little without people - whether that’s how we treat our colleagues, or how we design developer experiences. Being human matters.
• Dependable people make dependable things. Dependability is integral to our mission and technology, but being dependable starts with our people. When we care enough to take real ownership of our products and problems - all else will follow.

What’s in it for you?

• A good, competitive salary
• A great company culture
• Share options
• A remote first compan. Unless you want to pop into our communal office space in Shoreditch, London, you'll work from home most of the time, apart from when we have planning sessions/Summits which happen on average once a month.
• Your choice of high quality tech kit to work on
• Health insurance, including Doctor@Hand
• Employee Assistance Programme
• ClassPass membership
• Cycle to work
• Regular company away days and social events
• Friday need-to-know drinks and snacks 
• Ongoing professional development (training, events, conferences), including an assigned budget
• 25 days of paid annual leave (33 days including bank holidays)
• Company contributions towards your pension

If you enjoy working as part of a technology company, value open source, and love solving hard problems - then we’d love to hear from you, regardless of whether you fit the spec exactly or not.