{"id":1204910,"url":"https://alion.io/job/zerotier-senior-sales-engineer-pre-sales-2","title":"Senior Sales Engineer (Pre-Sales)","company":{"id":694530,"name":"ZeroTier","domain":"zerotier.com","url":"https://alion.io/company/zerotier","size_band":"11-50","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Lever","truth_index":null},"role":"Solutions","role_family":"Solutions","seniority":"senior","employment_type":null,"work_mode":"hybrid","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"explicit","locations":["Netherlands"],"countries":["NL"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":null,"salary_estimate":{"min_usd":79000,"max_usd":159000,"period":"year","method":"role_seniority_country_cell","sample_n":11},"experience_years_min":5,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":true,"technologies":[{"name":"Layer 2","optional":false},{"name":"VPN","optional":false},{"name":"ZeroTier","optional":false},{"name":"AWS","optional":true},{"name":"Azure","optional":true},{"name":"Bash","optional":true},{"name":"DNS","optional":true},{"name":"GCP","optional":true},{"name":"Linux","optional":true},{"name":"Microsoft Entra ID","optional":true},{"name":"Okta","optional":true},{"name":"Python","optional":true},{"name":"Rest API","optional":true},{"name":"Rust","optional":true},{"name":"Tcpdump","optional":true},{"name":"Wireshark","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-09-24T18:20:35Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-09-24","last_verified_at":"2026-09-26T02:15:29Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":1,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":1},"description":"Opening\nSenior Sales Engineer is a pre-sales, customer-facing role working closely with the Sales team. You'll spend your days in discovery calls, demos, POVs, and deal strategy - not in a NOC or writing production code, but you will also participate in post-sales technical escalation support on occasion, as well as collaborate with customer success and customer onboarding requests. This is not a software or network architect role.” Pre-sales Engineering experience is required.\nAbout ZeroTier\nZeroTier leads the world in next-generation connectivity and cybersecurity. Our platform provides highly secure, peer-to-peer virtual networks relied upon by millions of users and businesses - from individual users and startups to mid-scale enterprises and Fortune 500 companies. We’re backed by awesome investors including Battery Ventures, Bonfire Ventures, and Anorak Ventures.\nThe Role\nYou are the technical counterpart to our Account Executives and the trusted advisor to buyers across Europe, Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world - from a founder connecting a fleet of Raspberry Pis, to an industrial OT team bridging PLCs across plants, to a defense integrator architecting an air-gapped, post-quantum secure sovereign network. You own the technical win: discovery, solution architecture, demos, and proof-of-value engagements end-to-end, then hand off cleanly to Customer Success.\nWhat You’ll Do\nOwn the technical win across the deal cycle: discovery and qualification with AEs, demo, POV design and execution, technical close.\n\nRun structured POVs with clear success criteria, mutual action plans, timelines, and exit decisions - for deployments from ten nodes to tens of thousands.\n\nDeliver demos and whiteboard sessions that land with audiences from hands-on network engineers to CISOs and procurement executives.\n\nWin competitive deals - articulating where ZeroTier beats WireGuard-based stacks and legacy VPN/SD-WAN vendors, and being honest about where it doesn't.\n\nAnswer RFPs, RFIs, and security questionnaires, translating NIST, European, and NATO, and post-quantum readiness requirements into concrete architecture answers.\n\nArchitect across our full surface area: hosted Central, self-hosted controllers, flow rules, bridging, multipath, SSO/OIDC, and ZeroTier Quantum's SaaS, sovereign, and air-gapped modes.\n\nBridge to Engineering when deals need it - reproduce issues, capture evidence, escalate defects and feature gaps.\n\nBuild the SE machine: demo environments, reference architectures, battle cards, and POV runbooks that make the whole go-to-market team faster.\n\nFeed the field's voice into the product: structured win/loss insights, deployment patterns, roadmap input.\n\nWhat We’re Looking For\nPre-sales craft comes first. We can teach ZeroTier internals; we can't teach you how to run a deal.\n5+ years “customer-facing” in a pre-sales role - Sales Engineer, Solutions Engineer, or Solutions Architect attached to a sales team and a quota. You can point to deals you helped win and explain your role in winning them.\n\nExcellent discovery skills: you ask the second and third question, uncover the real problem, and disqualify gracefully when there isn't a fit.\n\nExecutive presence and range - equally credible whiteboarding Layer 2 internals with a network architect and presenting risk and ROI to a board-level audience.\n\nPOV/pilot management as a discipline: success criteria, mutual action plans, crisp status communication, on-time execution in parallel.\n\nExcellent written communication - architecture docs, follow-up summaries, and RFP responses that are clear, polished, and technically precise.\n\nFluent professional English - with the ability to communicate complex technical concepts clearly with customers across Europe and other parts of the world. Additional languages are a plus.\n\nA builder's mindset for a ~30+-person company: low ego, high ownership, comfortable with ambiguity.\n\nThe technical bar (you'll be tested on this, conversationally):\nStrong networking fundamentals: Layer 2 vs. Layer 3 behavior, routing, NAT and NAT traversal, firewalls, DNS, and overlay/underlay separation.\n\nComfort at the packet level - Wireshark/tcpdump is a working tool, not a party trick.\n\nSolid Linux and real cloud experience (AWS/Azure/GCP): VPCs, routing, security groups, hybrid connectivity.\n\nHands-on familiarity with at least two of: SD-WAN, ZTNA, VPN technologies (WireGuard, IPsec, OpenVPN), container networking, or embedded/IoT connectivity.\n\nWorking knowledge of SSO/identity (OIDC, SAML, Entra ID/Okta) as it intersects with network access.\n\nScripting fluency (Python, Bash) - enough to automate a demo environment and exercise a REST API. ( Rust exp is nice but not critical)\n\nThe ability to translate all of the above into plain-language business value for a non-cryptographer audience\n\nNice to have\nSelling into defense, government, or regulated sectors (national Ministries of Defence, NATO, EU institutions, GovCloud, sovereign infrastructure).\n\nFamiliarity with European cybersecurity and regulatory frameworks, such as NIS2, DORA, the EU Cyber Resilience Act, and European digital sovereignty requirements.\n\nBackground in OT/industrial environments (Modbus, IEC-61850, SCADA).\n\nPrior work at an overlay networking, mesh VPN, ZTNA, or SD-WAN vendor.\n\nExperience as a first or early SE hire - building the function, not just running plays.\n\nA working grasp of modern cryptography and the quantum threat model - why \"harvest now, decrypt later\" makes PQC a today problem - and familiarity with the NIST PQC standards (FIPS 203/204/205), hybrid schemes, and the CNSA 2.0 compliance landscape. Most importantly: the ability to translate this into plain-language business value without overselling.\n\nFamiliarity with the NIST post-quantum standards (FIPS 203 / ML-KEM, FIPS 204 / ML-DSA, FIPS 205 / SLH-DSA), hybrid classical + PQC schemes, and crypto-agility as an architectural principle.\n\nAwareness of the compliance landscape driving adoption: CNSA 2.0, European and NATO cryptographic requirements, and emerging PQC mandates across government and regulated industries.\n\nHow we work\nYou'll report to the Director of Pre-Sales Engineering & Customer Success and partner daily with Sales, Engineering, and Customer Success. Remote-first, with occasional travel for key customer engagements, POV kickoffs, and industry events. We move quickly, write things down, and hold a high bar for what we put in front of customers.\nImportant: This is a hybrid role based in Utrecht, the Netherlands, with three days per week in our office at Utrecht Central Station and two days working from home.\nBenfits\nBenefits\nCompetitive salary\nHybrid work environment: we work 3 days at our office at Utrecht Central Station and 2 days from home\n\nEquity compensation package\n\nRetirement savings plan with employer contribution\n\n25 holiday days of PTO per year\n\nFlexible work hours (subject to management approval)\n\nCareer Enhancement Funds as well as a generous Employee Referral Bonus","description_format":"text","description_chars":7011,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":5,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[{"language":"English","level":"All levels","optional":false}]},"benefits":["Equity","Flexible schedule","Hybrid work","Retirement plans"],"hiring_locations":[{"name":"Netherlands","iso":"NL","kind":"country"}],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Network Security","VPN & Proxy Services"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-24T23:13:31Z"},{"event":"close","at":"2026-09-25T18:14:09Z"},{"event":"reopen","at":"2026-09-26T02:15:29Z"}],"liveness":{"score":86,"band":"hot","label":"Hiring now","p_open":1,"p_active":0.86,"p_room":1,"age_days":0,"expected_fill_days":31,"reasons":["conf:1","win:early"],"computed_at":"2026-09-25T05:45:01Z"},"pay":null,"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/zerotier-senior-sales-engineer-pre-sales-2","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/zerotier-senior-sales-engineer-pre-sales-2.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-26T02:46:12Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":2917,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":2083,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-09-27T00:00:00Z"}}}