Field Engineer

Who We Are:

Materialize is the context engine for AI agents and applications. It lets engineering teams use SQL to transform siloed operational data into up-to-the-second, trustworthy views into any element of their business. Use Materialize to deliver fresh context to AI agents, power data-intensive UIs, and create low-latency, event-driven architectures that drive microservices and core business processes. Materialize is trusted by General Mills, Bilt Rewards, and Crane Worldwide Logistics to solve their most pressing operational data challenges while building a live data foundation for their AI transformation.

Our team spans the US (with a NYC headquarters), Canada, and EMEA.

Investors:

Kleiner Perkins, Redpoint Ventures and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

ROLE OVERVIEW

As a Senior Field Engineer, you are the technical lead of a customer-facing pod, partnering closely with an Account Executive to drive successful evaluations, onboarding, and expansion for Materialize' customers. You own the technical relationship from discovery through production and beyond, and you take that ownership seriously across multiple strategic accounts simultaneously. This is a hybrid pre-sales and post-sales role with real architectural depth: you'll spend the majority of your time working directly with customers running discovery, demos, and POVs, guiding customers into production, and driving expansion within your portfolio.

Beyond your individual accounts, you'll contribute meaningfully to the Field Engineering function itself, building repeatable assets that scale across the team, and shape how Materialize wins technically. This role is ideal for someone who has owned the full technical lifecycle on enterprise deals before, thrives in technical ambiguity, and wants to step into a seat with broader influence on how a category-defining infrastructure product is evaluated and adopted.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Own the full technical relationship for a portfolio of enterprise accounts, from initial discovery through production deployment and expansion

• Lead complex technical discovery conversations with senior engineering and platform stakeholders, applying Materialize's qualification frameworks

• Design and deliver tailored demos and time-boxed POVs with clear success criteria, often at high architectural complexity

• Serve as a trusted technical advisor to customers, translating Materialize's architecture into specific value for their operational data challenges

• Explain Materialize's positioning relative to alternatives such as Flink, Snowflake, Databricks, ClickHouse, and custom-built systems - and lead competitive technical evaluations

• Partner with Account Executives on deal strategy, technical qualification, and MEDPICC execution across the full sales cycle

• Guide customers from closed-won through first production workloads, owning technical milestones and risk mitigation

• Provide ongoing architectural guidance, monitor usage patterns, and proactively surface expansion opportunities in partnership with Sales

• Build and improve repeatable assets that scale across the Field Engineering team - demo environments, POV templates, discovery playbooks, competitive battlecards, and architectural reference materials

• Document best practices and contribute meaningfully to internal enablement

WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR

• 5+ years of experience in a customer-facing technical role such as Field Engineering, Solutions Engineering, Solutions Architecture, or Technical Consulting - with demonstrated ownership of enterprise accounts at meaningful deal sizes

• Strong understanding of modern data architectures, including relational databases, event streaming, change data capture, and microservices

• Deep proficiency with SQL and the ability to reason about query behavior, performance, and operational vs. analytical workload patterns

• Familiarity with cloud infrastructure (AWS, GCP, or Azure) and containerized environments

• Experience building repeatable customer-facing assets (POV frameworks, demo environments, discovery playbooks)

• Demonstrated track record of driving technical wins on competitive enterprise deals

• Strong communication skills and comfort presenting to both technical and executive audiences

• A structured, process-oriented mindset paired with the flexibility needed in a fast-growing startup

• Background in data infrastructure, developer tools, or technical consulting is a plus

• Experience with real-time or streaming systems (Kafka, Flink, Spark) is a strong plus

• Scripting experience in Python, Go, or similar languages is a plus

COMPENSATION

Base salary: $175,000 - $200,000/year plus additional variable bonus and equity, in addition to a full range of medical, financial, and/or other benefits. The base pay offered may vary depending on job-related knowledge, skills, and experience.

The salary range provided in this job description should not be considered a guarantee or commitment. The actual compensation offered may vary based on individual qualifications objectively assessed during the application and interview process, including but not limited to the candidate’s:

• Qualifications and relevant work experience

• Educational background and credentials

• Relevant skills and certifications

• Geographic location

• Market demands

Materialize reserves the right to adjust the salary range based on the candidate's specific circumstances and the overall compensation package.

We understand it takes a diverse team of highly intelligent, passionate, curious, and creative people to develop the exceptional product we are building. Our dynamic team has incredible perspectives to share, just as we know you do, and we take great pride in being an equal opportunity employer.