Director, Field Sales Engineering

About the role:

Samsara is seeking a strategic and highly technical Director of Sales Engineering – New Products to build and lead a specialist Sales Engineering team focused on incubating and scaling new products. In this role, you will partner closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Product Marketing to accelerate adoption of Samsara’s newest innovations and ensure we deliver exceptional technical value to customers — from early-stage introduction through scaled deployment.

As a Sales Engineering leader at Samsara, you will develop and lead a team of specialist SEs who serve as subject matter experts across emerging and evolving product lines. Your team will play a critical role in translating early-stage product capabilities into clear, differentiated customer outcomes, influencing product direction through structured field feedback, and building repeatable technical sales plays that enable broader field adoption. This team will operate in close alignment with our mainline sales and specialist sales teams to ensure a cohesive, integrated customer experience and a seamless transition from incubation to scaled execution.

You and your team will engage in executive-level customer conversations, lead complex technical discovery, architect solutions, execute proof-of-value initiatives, and collaborate cross-functionally to remove technical and operational barriers to adoption. You will act as trusted advisors to both customers and internal stakeholders, shaping how new products are positioned, demonstrated, packaged, deployed, and supported in the field.

The ideal candidate is an experienced Sales Engineering leader who thrives in ambiguity and has a proven track record of launching new technical solutions into enterprise and mid-market segments. You are equally comfortable engaging executives and diving deep into architecture, integrations, and deployment strategy, with a focus on driving measurable adoption and revenue impact.

This is a remote position open to candidates in the U.S. Relocation assistance will not be provided for this role. 

In this role, you will: 

• Build and lead Samsara’s New Product Sales Engineering organization, defining the operating model and success metrics for new product incubation and scale.
• Hire, develop, and lead an inclusive, high-performing team of specialist SEs, providing clear coaching, technical mentorship, and career development.
• Partner closely with Sales, Product, Engineering, and Product Marketing to define go-to-market strategies, technical positioning, and field enablement for new product launches.
• Lead from the front in high-impact customer engagements, serving as an executive sponsor and technical thought leader for strategic new product opportunities.
• Develop repeatable technical sales plays and proof-of-value frameworks that accelerate adoption and enable successful transition to mainline sales teams.
• Own your organization’s performance against adoption, pipeline influence, and revenue goals for new products.
• Create structured feedback loops between the field and Product and Engineering teams, influencing roadmap prioritization through customer insights and technical validation.
• Ensure alignment and seamless collaboration between specialist SEs, mainline SEs, and broader GTM teams to deliver a cohesive customer experience.
• Continuously elevate the organization by leveraging Samsara’s leadership frameworks and fostering a culture of learning, experimentation, and accountability.
• Champion, role model, and embed Samsara’s cultural principles (Focus on Customer Success, Build for the Long Term, Adopt a Growth Mindset, Be Inclusive, Win as a Team) as we scale globally and across new offices
• Hire, develop and lead an inclusive, engaged, and high performing team
  

Minimum requirements for the role:

• 4-year degree from an accredited university
• 7+ years of experience managing a technical team, ideally in a sales engineering capacity
• Proven success in hiring, developing, and retaining leadership talent
• Experience creating scalable and consistent feedback loops enabling your Management Team to participate in process improvements and scaling activities
• Experience with SE capacity planning based on Sales need across different segments globally
• Experience building process and integrating software tools to measure organizational performance impact throughout the build/sales lifecycle
• Experience driving product development based on input from Sales Leadership, prospects, and customers
• Experience collaborating with internal cross functional teams (Product Management, Engineering, Customer Success, Support, etc.) to deliver results as part of the sales cycle
• Success in managing relationships with external technology partners through complex sales cycles

An ideal candidate also has:

• BS or MS in an Engineering discipline from an accredited university
• 7+ years of experience managing a Sales Engineering Team selling cloud managed hardware product lines
• Experience partnering with GTM teams in frontier markets to increase sales and drive product development
• Experience clearly defining roles and responsibilities through corporate change, including cross-functional team interactions as well as internal team growth  
• Experience managing an organizational budget
• Understanding of vehicle diagnostic systems, including Controller Area Networks (CAN bus) and Power Take Off (PTO) applications
• Hobbyist interest in working with things driven by electronic systems (car audio installation/classic car restoration, home automation, building things with raspberry pi, arduino, etc.)