Solutions Engineer

Overview

You demo Thinkific's online course platform to prospects ranging from solo course creators scaling up to enterprise training departments. You work alongside AEs to run technical discovery, configure demo environments that match prospect use cases, and answer implementation questions about migrating existing content, integrations, and platform capabilities.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Growth stage (402 employees, likely Series C or beyond based on size)

Size: 402 employees

Growth: Established player in online learning platforms, competing in a mature market

Market Position: Challenger competing against Teachable, Kajabi, Podia, and enterprise LMS platforms

GTM Reality

Pipeline Sources:

• 60% Inbound - free trial users, demo requests from website, content marketing leads
• 25% PLG-assisted - existing customers upgrading from lower tiers or expanding use cases
• 15% Outbound - AE-sourced expansion into corporate training departments

SDR/AE Structure: Likely dedicated AE team with some SDR support for top-of-funnel qualification

SE Support: Small SE team supporting multiple AEs (probably 4-6:1 ratio)

Competitive Landscape

Main Competitors: Teachable, Kajabi, Podia (creator economy), plus Docebo, TalentLMS (enterprise LMS)

How They Differentiate: Balance between ease-of-use for creators and enterprise features; white-labeling and customization options

Common Objections: "Too expensive vs Teachable", "Not as feature-rich as Kajabi", "Our LMS already does this", "Migration seems complicated"

Win Themes: Better for businesses scaling beyond solopreneur phase; stronger customization and branding; good middle ground between simple and enterprise-complex

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Demos & Discovery (40%) | Proof of Concepts (20%) | Internal Prep (20%) | Deal Support (20%)

Key Activities

• Running Product Demos: You do 5-8 demos per week, each 45-60 minutes. You're showing course creation, student experience, payment processing, marketing tools, and integrations. You customize the demo based on whether they're a course creator, consultant, or corporate training team.
• Technical Discovery Calls: You dig into their current setup ("What platform are you on now?", "How many courses?", "What integrations do you need?"). You're documenting technical requirements and identifying potential blockers like specific LMS integrations or custom authentication needs.
• Building Custom Demo Environments: For bigger deals, you clone their brand and build out sample courses with their content to show them what their platform would look like. This takes 3-5 hours per custom demo.
• Answering Technical Questions: You field Slack messages and emails all day from AEs and prospects asking "Can Thinkific do X?". Questions about SSO, API capabilities, Zapier integrations, SCORM compliance, white-labeling limits, etc.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You're doing a lot of the same demo over and over. The platform capabilities don't change week-to-week, so it's repetitive. You find ways to keep it fresh, but by demo 6 on Thursday, you're on autopilot.
• Prospects often have unrealistic expectations about migration effort. They think moving 50 courses with thousands of students will be "click a button" easy. You spend time resetting expectations and explaining the actual work involved.
• You're supporting multiple AEs with different selling styles and deal priorities. You get pulled into deals at different stages, sometimes last-minute. Calendar management is constant Tetris.
• Enterprise deals drag on. You do a great demo, they love it, then it sits in procurement for 8 weeks. You're following up monthly with "any updates?" and mostly hearing silence.
• The product has limitations. When someone asks if Thinkific does something niche (advanced gamification, AI-powered content recommendations, specific compliance reporting), the answer is often "no" or "kind of, with workarounds." You have to position what it can't do honestly while keeping deals alive.

What Success Looks Like

• AEs want you on their deals because you increase close rates by 20-30%
• You're converting 40%+ of your qualified demos to next steps or closed deals
• Your custom POCs are accelerating enterprise sales cycles instead of adding delays
• You're feeding product feedback from prospects back to the product team, and they actually listen

Who You're Selling To

Primary Buyers:

• Course creators and coaches ($50K-500K revenue range) scaling from DIY platforms
• Corporate training managers evaluating alternatives to clunky enterprise LMS
• Consultants and agencies building learning products for clients
• SMB learning & development departments (20-500 employees)

What They Care About:

• Ease of migration - "How hard is it to move my existing content?"
• Student experience - "Will this look professional? Can I brand it?"
• Integration ecosystem - "Does it work with Salesforce/Zoom/Slack/HubSpot?"
• Pricing predictability - They want to understand costs as they scale
• Support quality - They're nervous about being left hanging if something breaks

Requirements

• 2-4 years in pre-sales, solutions engineering, or customer-facing technical role
• Experience demoing SaaS products (EdTech or MarTech background helpful)
• Comfortable learning complex software platforms quickly
• Can translate technical capabilities into business outcomes without jargon
• Patient with non-technical users (many prospects aren't tech-savvy)
• Organized enough to juggle 15-25 active opportunities across multiple AEs
• Willing to work some evenings for demos with global prospects or busy entrepreneurs