What makes the ideal Solutions Engineer or Pre Sales Engineer for a SaaS Financial Technology company?

I manage a global team at GoCardless and want to help folks, worldwide, decide if this role is right for them! When hiring I’m seeking at least three core traits; Collaboration, Curiosity / Drive, and Ability to prioritize.

When I reflect on my time as a Solutions Engineer, across a few organizations, I found some of the most rewarding experiences were when I exercised these traits.

1. Collaboration – As my previous mentor, Matt Doar at ServiceRocket, used to say, “We don’t hire a**holes”. There’s something special about a person who’s vulnerable enough to admit they don’t know the answer and can ask for help when needed. Taking that a step further, once you’re in the role you’ll need to work across teams to solve complex problems. Understanding what my product teams were building, the KPIs they were benchmarked against, and why it was exciting to them was crucial. It’s important to do this before I needed their help with collaborating on an opportunity. By knowing these things before a sales call, it allowed me to be an advocate for my product team. I could brag on their behalf and talk about projects they’ve successfully implemented against timelines. Based on my catch ups with the team, I already knew about all the hard work they put into their projects. It illustrates the complete picture a prospect needed to see before buying. By having a tight relationship with my product teams we were able to move together in a truly team-oriented way.

2. Curiosity / Drive – Having a natural sense of curiosity, attention to detail, intrinsic motivation, and pride in your work are crucial aspects that roll up into this trait. Are you proud of the work you are delivering? Does the company and industry align with your personal why? These are the questions I’ve asked myself, or simply know about myself, before delivering against my quota. 3. Ability to prioritize. I like to ask this question during interviews, “how do you go about prioritizing work when you have many teams competing for your time?” The ability to prioritize in a thoughtful, proactive, and productive way is crucial to your success and success of the overall business.  Quite often you are the only one that can make a quick decision on how to manage your workload. Is your decision criteria process going to set you up for success? When I deliver on the higher prioritized tasks, I often solve more problems that way. It’s a bonus to the last person who gets my help because likely I’m more attuned to other solutions that may be problems they aren’t even aware of yet and could help them in the future.

3. Ability to prioritize. I like to ask this question during interviews, “how do you go about prioritizing work when you have many teams competing for your time?” The ability to prioritize in a thoughtful, proactive, and productive way is crucial to your success and success of the overall business.  Quite often you are the only one that can make a quick decision on how to manage your workload. Is your decision criteria process going to set you up for success? When I deliver on the higher prioritized tasks, I often solve more problems that way. It’s a bonus to the last person who gets my help because likely I’m more attuned to other solutions that may be problems they aren’t even aware of yet and could help them in the future.

This article was written by NAASE Advisory Board Member Mary Carter.  To learn more about Mary, visit https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryecarter/