Principal Solutions Engineer, West

About the role

As a Principal Solutions Engineer, you’ll be at the forefront of the AI transformation in customer experience. Partnering with Sales Directors, you’ll serve as both a business consultant and technical expert—guiding prospective customers through the discovery, design, and validation of Cresta’s AI-powered solutions.

You’ll connect deeply with customer stakeholders to understand their business goals, technical environments, and operational challenges, and architect intelligent solutions that combine the power of LLMs , SLMs , and real-time AI assistance . Your ability to translate both technical complexity and business impact will be critical to driving successful sales cycles and long-term customer outcomes.
Responsibilities
- Act as a consultative partner to customers—uncovering business objectives, technical environments, and operational challenges to map them to AI-driven solutions.
- Act as a consultative advisor to prospective customers, uncovering operational workflows and strategic goals to design solutions leveraging Cresta’s real-time AI capabilities, including virtual agents, agent assist, and conversation intelligence.

- Lead technical discovery sessions to understand customer systems, including contact center infrastructure, telephony and IVR architecture, and CRM/workforce management platforms.
- Qualify and translate customer requirements into robust, scalable Cresta configurations, ensuring tight alignment with business value and technical feasibility.
- Design and deliver compelling, tailored product demonstrations that highlight how Cresta’s AI-powered virtual agents, real-time coaching, and analytics can deliver measurable business outcomes.
- Own the technical design and delivery of proof-of-value (POV) engagements, including integrations, real-time coaching workflows, and virtual agent use cases.
- Run ROI workshops and build business case models that connect Cresta’s capabilities to quantifiable customer impact (e.g., cost reduction, efficiency, CSAT).

- Provide insights based on your experience with AI technologies, contact center transformation, and customer success strategies.
- Serve as a technical liaison between Sales, Product, and Engineering—providing feedback on platform capabilities, customer needs, and market trends in AI, NLP, and contact center transformation.
- Stay current on emerging technologies, including LLMs, SLMs, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), speech recognition, and contact center AI platforms.
- Deliver persuasive, tailored product demonstrations that showcase how Cresta’s AI—built on a proprietary architecture using large and small language models—drives measurable ROI through automation, efficiency, and improved customer outcomes.

Qualifications We Value
- 7+ years of experience in customer-facing roles, including 1–3 years in pre-sales, solutions engineering, or consulting within the enterprise software or contact center industry.
- Deep knowledge of contact center solutions, including telephony architecture (SIP, SBCs, ACDs, IVRs) and CCaaS platforms (e.g., Genesys, NICE, Five9, Amazon Connect).
- Strong understanding of AI/ML technologies, especially large language models (LLMs), small language models (SLMs), and how they are applied in conversational AI and agent augmentation.
- Experience with real-time systems, CRM tools (e.g., Salesforce), analytics platforms, and SaaS solution architecture.
- Ability to design and communicate complex solutions clearly to both technical and business audiences.

- Consultative mindset with a proven track record of leading strategic conversations, influencing stakeholders, and tailoring solutions to business goals.
- Fast learner and self-starter who thrives in high-growth, high-collaboration environments.
- Enthusiastic about Cresta’s mission and motivated to help customers unlock value from AI.
- You embody our core Operating Principles.

Perks & Benefits

We offer a comprehensive and people-first benefits package to support you at work and in life:
- Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with plans to fit you and your family.
- Flexible PTO to take the time you need, when you need it.
- Paid parental leave for all new parents welcoming a new child.
- Retirement savings plan to help you plan for the future.
- Remote work setup budget to help you create a productive home office.
- Monthly wellness and communication stipend to keep you connected and balanced.
- In-office meal program and commuter benefits provided for onsite employees.

Compensation at Cresta

Cresta’s approach to compensation is simple: recognize impact, reward excellence, and invest in our people. We offer competitive, location-based pay that reflects the market and what each individual brings to the table.

The posted base salary range represents what we expect to pay for this role in a given location. Final offers are shaped by factors like experience, skills, education, and geography. In addition to base pay, total compensation includes equity and a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family.

This role is variable target compensation eligible. There is potential to exceed target earnings when goals are surpassed. OTE Range: $220,000-$275,000 - variable & Offers Equity.