Sales Engineers for Climate-Tech: A Key Role in Climate Solutions Sales
- Magda Cheang
- Jun 13
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 7
In today’s blog, we’ll be discussing a specific role within climate-tech and renewable energy companies - that of the Sales Engineer. It’s also known as Technical Solutions Engineer or Solutions Engineer or Pre-Sales Engineer.
Climate SaaS solutions often involve selling complex, data-driven platforms (e.g., for carbon accounting, ESG reporting, energy optimisation, or climate risk modelling), which means technical credibility and environmental knowledge are critical in these positions.
Why do you need talented sales engineers in your climate-tech start-up?
Let’s discuss what kind of company would need a sales engineer. Usually, start-ups that have a specific software or technology-based solution would require such an employee in their organisation. Generally speaking, when there is a climate-tech SaaS or technology focused product, this solution can be complex or technical. Because of this complexity, a Sales Engineer would be needed at the start-up. A Sales Engineer bridges the gap between your technical solution and your customer's sustainability challenges, translating complex climate data into business value. They help close deals faster by tailoring demos, managing integrations, and ensuring your product meets evolving ESG and compliance needs. In a space where credibility and clarity are critical, they turn technical depth into commercial impact.
What does a Sales Engineer do?
In general a sales engineer is responsible for conducting technical demonstrations of the product, responding to RFP (requests for proposals), helping with technical project management and implementation of the software solution with the clients. A Sales Engineer would also work internally, closely with the sales or customer success teams. Depending on the complexity of the product or the size of the climate-tech start-up, they could also be responsible for technical integration of solutions for each customer. Usually a sales engineer is involved in both the pre and pre-sales process during the commercial discussions with end clients. Depending on the specific climate-tech start-up, they may also be involved in post-sales work. Generally speaking larger companies may have separate departments that differentiate pre- vs post-sales work e.g they would be defined as Customer Success/Implementation Engineers.
What would a typical day in the life of a Sales Engineer entail?
Being a technical lead throughout the entire sales cycle, helping the sales team with business opportunities and creating specific tailored solutions to the end clients.
Doing product demonstrations, to showcase the capabilities and benefits of a specific SaaS or climate-tech solutions
Conducting technical analysis to ensure that the client’s needs are addressed.
Creation of pilot projects with the clients or proof of concept initiatives in the discovery phase.
Provide expert level information and advice on the technical aspects of the proposals and contracts, specifically during the technical RFP phases.
Common KPIs of a Sales Engineer
Now that we’ve explored the day to day work of a sales engineer, let’s discuss common key performance indicators (KPIS) of sales engineers.
Technical Win Rate in Deals
As a sales engineer, one key performance indicator would be the percentage of (sales) opportunities that you help convert through your technical configuration or technical sales ability. E.g. the number of opportunities that were won due to technical specifications created by you.
Deal Influence
Another common key performance indicator would be the total value or number of deals with the sales engineer providing technical input to help the prospect with their decision making and sales process. E.g. by answering technical questions or providing inputs on the customisation of the solution to the client’s specific requirements.
Time to Climate Solution Design
If your climate-tech company provides highly tailored solutions, one key performance indicator that can be set would be the time to solution design, e.g how long it takes you to create a customised solution for the client. This would specifically be applicable where the client has a specific project in mind that requires customisation, or the SaaS solution is complex and requires an “enterprise grade” level type of solution design.
Customer Technical Satisfaction (CSAT)
Customers ultimately want to have a smooth implementation process, therefore a customer satisfaction score is often a key performance indicator. In this case, it would could be based on the ease of implementation, the support provided by the sales engineer and the project- time-lines as well as the collaboration with the client’s technical team.
Internal Training or Customer Training
As a sales engineer, you could also be responsible for internal training of the solution. In this case, you’d be responsible for creating specific training to internal teams on the product. In some start-ups, the customer success team does not do customer training, and the sales engineering team would be responsible for training the end-user. In that case, the number of training or the success of your trainings could also be an indicator of performance.
Key Skills required as a Sales Engineer
Sales Engineers need to have a combination of skills in order to be successful in their careers. Below you’ll find some key skills needed to be successful, that we have found are very important in such a role.
Soft Skills
These skills help build trust, communicate clearly, and manage relationships across technical and non-technical stakeholders.
Excellent communication skills:
The ability to explain complex technical concepts in simple terms. Tailoring messaging for different audiences (senior leadership, IT teams or sustainability teams). This is important as in your day to day role you could be explaining a highly technical solution to a senior executive one moment, and the next money you could be talking to the IT teams on the client-side about an API integration of your software and their systems.
Excellent listening skills:
This is the ability to actively listen, specifically in order to understand customer pain points, any technical constraints and goals. For example, they could be using your SaaS solution to monitor specific climate risks, or in order to track their emissions in a specific project or geographical area. Such skills also enable you to understand any priorities or unstated concerns they may have.
Problem solving and critical thinking:
Being able to determine and solve technical issues and mapping them to the product’s capabilities is a key skill. In addition you should be able to create custom solutions within tight deadlines.
Collaboration & teamwork:
Excellent team working skills are needed in most jobs, however, as a sales engineer you as in a cross-functional role where you have to be able to work both internal and externally with a number of different teams, they could be people in the sales, product, customer success or engineering team. Knowing how to collaborate well and influence them is highly important.
Presentation & demo skills:
Being able to do technical presentations well is a key skill needed by sales engineers. The reason is that in your role you will need to lead demos that resonate with the customer needs and be able to adapt during the meeting to any technical questions or objections.
Time management & prioritisation & project management:
Working in a climate-tech start-up as a sales engineer often means you have to have excellent time-management and project management skills. You will have several pre-sales discussions on a weekly basis, and you also need to manage your time as you’ll have several RFPs to reply to, internal conversations to have and time-lines to adhere to.
Hard Skills
In addition to the soft skills we mentioned, sales engineers need to have strong technical and hard skills, sometimes you may be required to have a computer science or engineering degree. Here are the key skills needed:
Technical Product Knowledge
If the product is a climate-SaaS tool, you would need have a deep understanding of the architecture, features and benefits. You should also be able to customise the solution to specific customer use cases.
Domain Expertise (e Climate, ESG, Energy)
The type of SaaS you are working on could be specific to climate, ESG, or energy and therefore you’d need to have specific knowledge of the subject. If the software helps with carbon accounting, you should be familiar with GHG protocols and carbon emissions. If the software is related to renewable energy, you should be familiar with the industry and the topic.
Data Analysis & Interpretation
In your role as a sales engineer, you often will have to analyse customer data, in the form of spreadsheets, APIS or databases to interpret this client data. This data then could inform the specific tailored solution, which is they
Ability to work with spreadsheets, APIs, or databases to interpret client data
Solution Architecture / Systems Integration:
If you’re working on a SaaS product, it will most likely have to be integrated with your client’s systems, therefore have experience of solution architecture and systems integration, so understanding and experience in APS, ETL processes and common data flows.
Technical Documentation Skills
As a sales engineer, you will need to have strong technical documentation skills. This would be to create solution briefs, integration guides, technical proposal during the RFP process and frequently asked questions (FAQs). You will create these pre and post-sales support materials.
By hiring Sales Engineers in your climate-tech start-up, you're not just adding headcount—you're enhancing your ability to scale, close deals faster, and deliver long-term value to your clients.
At Jobs for Planet, we help climate tech start-ups grow and drive a sustainable future. Want to learn how we connect clients with top talent? Book at meeting or email us hello@jobsforplanet.com
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