Solutions Engineer
Raleigh, NC, USA
Relay is building the next generation of human-in-the-loop Physical AI — intelligent systems that don’t just live in data centers and dashboards, but operate in the real world: embedded in the workflows of the people who build, move, and maintain the physical infrastructure of the modern economy.
Our Relay platform brings AI-native situational awareness, real-time operational intelligence, and automated decision support to frontline environments. Where legacy software stops at the edge of the office, Relay’s platform goes all the way to the floor — turning unstructured operational data into coordinated action, at scale, in real time.
Why Join Relay?
- A Proven Winner: Join a hyper-growth company trusted by over 10% of the Fortune 500, continuing to move upmarket with massive impact.
- High Value, High Impact: With 47% of our revenue from $100K+ ARR customers and 135% Net Revenue Retention (NRR), you'll be joining a company rooted in value creation.
- Market-Leading Innovation: The Relay platform captures 1 billion new data points weekly and features award-winning AI tools like TeamTranslate™, with 500% YoY growth.
- World-Class Leadership: Our stellar leadership team is built to help us scale toward our next major milestones.
- The Relay Culture: We’re dedicated to helping you do the best work of your life (BWIML), investing in your growth through L.I.T., living our CHASE values, and learning from incredibly talented, supportive teammates who make the work (and the wins) better every day.
Now, here’s what we’re building, and where you come in.
What does the Solution Engineering team look like at Relay:
The Solutions Engineering team is the technical cornerstone of Relay's Enterprise sales motion. We turn complex customer problems into validated, architected solutions — proving technical feasibility in the customer's own environment, clearing security and technical diligence, and removing the IT objections that stall our largest deals.
As a Solutions Engineer, you are the primary technical authority across the pre-sales cycle for our most strategic Enterprise opportunities — the top 3-5 active deals in each segment. You'll partner with Enterprise sales to understand what frontline operations actually need, architect solutions on the Relay platform, build proof-of-concept deployments that prove value, and own the technical narrative through diligence and close. When a strategic deal's technical credibility is on the line, you're the person who makes the case undeniable.
This role lives in the pre-sales world: from first technical discovery through a clean handoff to post-sales teams once the deal is won. You accelerate revenue on our biggest deals by making the technical case real — then you set the downstream teams up to deliver on it.
Position Overview:
You'll work directly with operational leadership, IT and OT teams, and executive stakeholders across manufacturing, logistics, hospitality, and other frontline industries. You'll run discovery, design solutions against real-world constraints, build and demonstrate PoCs, lead security and technical diligence, and document the architecture so post-sales teams can execute it as envisioned.
Success in this role demands the technical depth to earn an engineer's trust and the business instinct to move an executive conversation forward — without losing precision in either direction.
Key Responsibilities:
- Pre-Sales Solution Architecture
- Partner with the Enterprise sales team and prospective customers to deeply understand their business objectives, technical requirements, and operational pain points.
- Design and architect robust, scalable solutions leveraging Relay's core product suite and open API capabilities to meet specific customer needs and create lasting value.
- Develop and deliver compelling, customized product demonstrations and technical presentations that clearly articulate the value and feasibility of the proposed solution to operational, IT, and executive stakeholders.
- Build and demonstrate proof-of-concept solutions that showcase platform capabilities and validate technical requirements against the customer's real-world conditions.
- Technical Sales Cycle Ownership
- Act as the primary technical point of contact and trusted advisor for prospective Enterprise customers throughout the sales cycle.
- Lead the technical diligence phase end-to-end — addressing technical questions, security inquiries (RFIs/RFPs, security questionnaires), IT architecture reviews, and integration concerns.
- Identify and overcome technical objections, securing technical validation and buy-in from customer stakeholders across operations, IT, and OT.
- Contribute technical expertise to proposals, statements of work, and commercial discussions.
- Knowledge Transfer & Handoff
- Thoroughly document the designed solution architecture, including key configurations, API usage, and integration points agreed upon during pre-sales.
- Conduct comprehensive handover sessions with Customer Success and Implementation teams once a deal is won, owning the handoff for novel and non-standardized solutions while standardized deals transition through the normal CS process.
- Ensure post-sales teams have the technical context, design rationale, and customer background needed to implement the solution as envisioned.
- Serve as a point of escalation or clarification on the original solution design when needed. Deep implementation and build-out sit with the customer or our internal Engineering team.
- Cross-Functional Influence
- Synthesize field intelligence into structured, actionable feedback for Product Management — identifying feature gaps, integration friction, and emerging customer requirements that shape the roadmap.
- Partner with Customer Success and Support to build playbooks for onboarding and supporting solutions on the frontier of our product capabilities.
- Equip Security and Support teams with the knowledge to complete routine technical and data security questionnaires, reserving Solutions capacity for the complex ones.
- Develop technical enablement assets — capability one-pagers, architecture diagrams, and integration cheat sheets — to arm Enterprise teams for conversations where Solutions can't participate directly.
- Collaborate with Marketing on technical content (whitepapers, case studies) when appropriate.
Required Qualifications:
- 3+ years in a customer-facing technical role where you owned the technical relationship with a client — Solutions Engineer, Sales Engineer, Solutions Architect, or a technical/implementation consulting role delivering software, data, or systems-integration projects.
- Demonstrated ability to translate complex business problems into technical solutions and communicate them credibly to both technical and business stakeholders.
- Hands-on experience building and delivering compelling technical demonstrations and working proof-of-concept deployments.
- Experience leading enterprise technical diligence — RFPs, security reviews, IT architecture evaluations.
- Comfort reading and working with APIs and integrations; ability to build prototypes to prove a concept.
- Exceptional communication skills, with the ability to move between deep technical detail and executive-level business narrative without losing precision in either direction.
- High tolerance for ambiguity; comfortable operating in fast-moving, undefined territory.
- Bachelor's degree, or equivalent practical experience. A technical degree (Computer Science, Engineering) is great, but we're equally interested in candidates from other backgrounds who have built strong technical capability through their post-college experience.
Strong Advantage:
- Direct experience with frontline operations — manufacturing, logistics, hospitality — or OT/IT convergence and industrial systems.
- Familiarity with real-time operational data systems, IoT infrastructure, or industrial automation platforms.
- Prior experience owning the technical track of strategic enterprise deals end-to-end.
- Experience scoping or delivering technical engagements in a consulting or professional-services environment.
Travel:
- Up to 50% domestic travel to meet with prospective customers and support sales engagements, particularly for strategic opportunities.
About Relay | Culture, Benefits & Perks
Our culture hinges on Relayers getting LIT up in an environment that fosters Learning, Impact, and Teamwork, where we CHASE the best work of our lives. We call this BWIML (Best Work In My Life).
At Relay, we offer:
- 100% Paid Insurance: Health, Dental, Vision, Long/Short Term Disability, and Life Insurance for you and your dependents
- Generous Paid Time Off
- 401(k) Savings Plan + Company Match
- Baby Cash Reward + Paid Parental Leave
- Wellness Perks: If you’re joining our Raleigh-based HQ, you’ll have access to a world-class onsite fitness center with instructor-led classes, plus tennis, basketball, pickleball, and cycling
- Team Events & Culture: From company celebrations to team outings, we work hard and have fun doing it.
- Latest tech, standing desks, and all the tools and software you need to thrive
The future of frontline work is being built here. Come build it with us. We can’t wait to hear from you
At Relay, we're building something special, and we believe our relationships with each other and our customers are the foundation of our success. This is a fully onsite role at our Raleigh, NC headquarters, with up to 50% travel expected. In-office presence is the norm when not traveling.