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Director of Sales Engineering

Chicago, IL; United States

Kai is the AI company rebuilding cybersecurity for the machine-speed era. Founded by second time founders and trusted by Fortune 500 enterprises, Kai is building a future where security has no categories, no silos, and no human speed bottlenecks. The Kai Agentic AI Platform replaces fragmented, human-limited workflows with agentic AI systems that continuously contextualize, assess, reason, and execute security work at machine speed - making human defenders, superhuman.

Why Join Kai

  • Well-funded: With $125M raised, we have the capital, runway, and resolve to rebuild cybersecurity from first principles.
  • Proven: We've earned the trust of Fortune 500 and Global 1000 companies, and we're just getting started. Their confidence in Kai reflects what we've built: an AI-powered cybersecurity platform that performs at the scale and speed the enterprise demands.
  • Experienced founders: Our founding team consists of second-time entrepreneurs, each with over 20 years of experience in the cybersecurity industry. Their proven expertise and vision drive our ambitious goals.
  • World-class leadership team: Our Heads of AI, Engineering, and Product bring extensive experience from some of the world’s most influential companies, ensuring top-tier mentorship, direction, and vision.
  • Frontier AI Applied Research Team: Our researchers operate at the leading edge of agentic AI systems, translating breakthrough capabilities into real-world cybersecurity applications.
  • Generous compensation: We offer highly competitive salaries, equity options, and a supportive work environment. Your contributions will be valued and rewarded as we grow together.

THE ROLE 

Kai is hiring a Director of Sales Engineering to lead our sales engineering team across North America. This is a fully remote, field-based role. You must be located in a major US metro, and we have a preference for Chicago or New York City. 

You will own the technical sales motion and the team that delivers it, reporting to the Vice President, Solution Engineering. You will partner with sales leadership on the forecast and carry the technical side of the deals that matter most. This is a hands-on leadership role, not one you manage from a dashboard. 

You will take over a team of six sales engineers and a mandate to double it. Much of the function doesn't exist yet. The person who joins now will shape how it operates, not just how it executes. 

WHAT YOU'LL DO 

  • Lead, coach, and develop a team of sales engineers covering enterprise accounts
  • Own the technical side of the forecast and represent it in weekly sales meetings
  • Hold the team accountable for deal management and pipeline hygiene in Salesforce
  • Hire and onboard sales engineers as the team scales, and raise the bar on who joins it
  • Be in the field on the deals that decide the quarter, as the technical authority in the room
  • Build the enablement, POV framework, and demo infrastructure the function needs
  • Drive operational excellence with your sales and product counterparts
  • Run cross-functional projects from scoping through delivery
  • Bring field intelligence back to Product and Engineering 

WHAT YOU'LL BRING 

Required: 

  • 5+ years leading a solutions engineering or sales engineering team as a first-line people leader
  • Experience owning a sales forecast and the methodology behind it
  • A bias for organization and project management, bringing structure to a team that needs more of it
  • Enterprise cybersecurity experience, with the credibility to speak across security domains
  • Technical SaaS selling experience
  • Track record selling into large enterprise accounts, including complex multi-stakeholder deals
  • Startup experience,  bringing brand new category-defining technology into the market
  • Hands-on technical depth, enough to still run a demo, scope a POV, and hold your own in a room of security architects, SOC leaders, and CISOs
  • Located in a major US metro and able to travel up to 50% of the time 

Preferred: 

  • Experience scaling a sales engineering team through a period of rapid growth
  • Experience owning a defined region or territory as a leader
  • Background in detection and response, vulnerability management, exposure management, security operations, or the AI SOC space
  • Experience working within a formal enterprise sales methodology such as MEDDICC/MEDDPICC, Force Management, Challenger, or similar
  • Prior involvement in building or refining a POV framework or SE playbook
  • Experience partnering closely with post-sales and customer success teams 

Kai is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. 

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Kai will process your personal data in accordance with Kai's Privacy Policy.

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