Overview
You're a GTM Engineer at Light Labs, handling the technical side of sales deals. You'll demo the product, answer technical questions from prospects, build custom POCs when needed, and help close deals by proving the product actually works for their use case. Based on the referral coming from a Clay GTM engineer, Light Labs likely operates in a similar technical sales motion space.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Pre-sales Solutions Engineer |
| Sales Motion | Likely balanced (inbound/outbound mix) |
| Deal Complexity | Consultative to Enterprise |
| Sales Cycle | 4-8 weeks (estimated) |
| Deal Size | $20K-100K ACV (estimated) |
| Quota (est.) | Not quota-carrying, but measured on deals influenced/closed |
Company Context
Stage: Unknown - likely early stage (Seed to Series A based on hiring pattern)
Size: Small team, under 50 employees (estimated)
Growth: Actively building out GTM team in Austin
Market Position: Likely early-stage company in the sales tech or data space, given the referral source from Clay's GTM team
GTM Reality
Pipeline Sources:
- Unknown mix, but likely a combination of outbound and inbound given the need for technical sales support
- You'll probably support both AE-sourced deals and inbound inquiries
SDR/AE Structure: Unknown - likely small team where you support multiple AEs or a founding sales team
SE Support: You ARE the SE support - likely the first or one of the first technical hires on the GTM side
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: Unknown without more company context
How They Differentiate: Unknown - you'll need to learn this in your first weeks
Common Objections: Will depend on the product category and competitive set
Win Themes: Likely technical depth, customization capability, or specific feature differentiation
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Demos (35%) | POCs/Technical Work (30%) | Internal Calls (20%) | Documentation (15%)
Key Activities
- Product Demos: You'll run 5-10 demos per week, walking prospects through the platform. Some are standard walkthroughs, others are customized based on their specific use case. You'll field technical questions on the fly and need to think on your feet.
- Proof of Concepts: For larger deals or technical buyers, you'll build custom POCs. This means taking their data, configuring the product to their workflow, and proving it actually solves their problem. Can take 1-2 weeks of focused work per POC.
- Technical Discovery: You'll join sales calls to ask the technical questions AEs might miss - what's their current stack, where does data live, what integrations matter, what are their security requirements. This shapes how you position the product.
- Internal Enablement: You'll work with AEs to help them understand what's technically possible, what to promise and what not to promise. Early-stage company means you're also feeding product feedback to engineering based on what prospects ask for.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- You're likely one of the first technical GTM hires, which means building the playbook from scratch - no established demo flow, no POC templates, no objection handling docs. You're creating all of that.
- Deals will stall on technical evaluation. You'll build a POC, the prospect will say they need two weeks to test it, then you won't hear from them for a month. Chasing for feedback is constant.
- You'll get pulled into deals at the last minute when they're not going well, expected to save them with a great demo. Sometimes the product just isn't the right fit and no amount of technical wizardry will change that.
- Early-stage company means the product has gaps. You'll need to demo around missing features and be honest about roadmap timing without killing deals.
What Success Looks Like
- AEs actively pull you into deals early because you help them close faster
- Your POCs convert at 60%+ to closed-won deals
- You're contributing to product roadmap based on consistent feedback from technical evaluations
- You've built a demo environment and POC framework that new SEs can use when the team grows
Who You're Selling To
Primary Buyers:
- Technical decision-makers (Directors/VPs of Engineering, Sales Ops, Rev Ops)
- Business decision-makers who need technical validation before signing
What They Care About:
- Does it actually work with their existing tech stack
- How hard is implementation - can their team handle it or do they need professional services
- Security, compliance, and data handling practices
- What happens when something breaks - support responsiveness and technical depth
Requirements
- 2-4 years in a technical role - could be solutions engineering, implementation, technical account management, or even product/engineering
- Comfortable demoing software live and handling technical questions without prep
- Ability to pick up new technical concepts quickly - you'll learn their product deeply in your first 30 days
- Based in or willing to relocate to Austin area
- Willingness to work at an early-stage company where processes are still being figured out