Principal Solution Engineer, US
US – Remote
ABOUT CERTINIA
Certinia (formerly FinancialForce) is the leading Services-as-a-Business platform, connecting every stage of the services lifecycle - from opportunity and delivery through customer success and financial management - on a single, Salesforce-native platform. Certinia's Professional Services Automation (PSA), Financial Management (FM), and Customer Success (CS) solutions, together with Veda, Certinia's AI layer, give services businesses the intelligence and agility to run with certainty and grow with confidence. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with team members around the world, Certinia is backed by Haveli Investments, TA Associates, General Atlantic, and Salesforce Ventures. For more information, visit www.certinia.com.
THE ROLE
Solution Engineers are trusted advisors focused on customer outcomes. Through structured, value-based discovery and demonstration, we help prospects see a clear, credible path to transformation on the Certinia platform - including how Certinia's agentic AI capabilities change the way services businesses run. We continually build our solution expertise, our command of the competitive landscape, and our ability to present value in business terms our customers care about. Beyond deal execution, we support pipeline-generating activity, contribute to sales enablement, and feed market and competitive intelligence back into product and marketing.
The Principal Solution Engineer is a senior individual contributor and the solution expert on Certinia's most complex opportunities, with a focus on the industry's leading solution for Professional Services Automation and the AI capabilities that now extend it. You will co-own strategic opportunities with Account Executives from first discovery through value realization, lead executive-level demonstrations and value narratives, and set the standard for how the Solution Engineering team sells. You will also help shape how AI is used inside the presales motion itself - building, piloting, and sharing the agents, assets, and practices that make the whole team faster and more effective. Ideal candidates bring deep services-industry credibility, strong executive presence, and genuine curiosity about how AI is changing both what we sell and how we sell it.
WHAT YOU'LL DO
Win complex, multi-stakeholder deals
- Fully understand customer and prospect requirements and priorities through structured, executive-level discovery.
- Partner with Account Executives to deliver engaging, value-centric demonstrations and executive readouts that differentiate Certinia, using the Tell–Show–Tell methodology.
- Co-own strategic opportunities as the solution expert throughout both net new and ongoing customer cycles, including multi-threaded engagements with finance, operations, delivery, and IT stakeholders.
- Build quantified value narratives and business-case models that connect platform capability to outcomes a CFO or COO will act on.
- Lead or support responses to RFIs, RFPs, and security questionnaires on the most strategic pursuits.
Sell AI credibly to enterprise buyers
- Position Certinia's Veda AI capabilities and agentic workflows in customer evaluations - showing what is real and shippable today, where autonomy is safe, and where a human stays in the loop.
- Help customers think through governance, data security, and risk when considering AI agents running parts of their business, and answer the hard questions from technical and executive buyers with confidence.
- Demonstrate how Veda works across Certinia's PSA, FM, and CS solutions on a single, Salesforce-native platform to deliver an AI-enabled services business.
- Stay current on how competitors package and claim agentic capability, and help the team respond with accuracy rather than hype.
Innovate how we work with AI
- Use AI tools daily to work faster and better - drafting and refining value decks, preparing discovery, researching accounts and competitors, and tailoring demo narratives - while applying sound judgment about where a person, not a model, makes the call.
- Design, pilot, and refine AI-assisted approaches to the presales motion, such as agents that help identify and qualify accounts, assist with discovery before or alongside the SE, and accelerate Value Prototyping and presales trials so prospects reach a proof point faster.
- Turn what works into reusable prompts, agents, templates, and playbooks, and share them so the whole team benefits - not just your own deals.
- Partner with Product, Sales Operations, and Enablement to measure impact and decide which pilots should scale.
Raise the bar for the team and the company
- Develop and grow deep expertise in Certinia solutions, the Salesforce platform, partner applications, and the competitive landscape.
- Mentor and coach Solution Engineers on discovery, demo strategy, executive presentation, and AI positioning.
- Contribute to enablement initiatives, demo environments and scripts, and competitive battlecards.
- Build platform configurations, extensions, and solution accelerators that solve specific customer business problems in the sales cycle, and work with Product to determine which should become standard capability.
- Provide structured market and field feedback to Product Management, grounded in real deal evidence.
- Partner with Marketing and Alliances to support field events and pipeline-generating activity.
WHAT WE'RE LOOKING FOR
- 5–7 years of experience as a pre-sales professional supporting enterprise applications, or equivalent years in professional services or customer success leadership, demonstrating deep domain expertise.
- Strong presentation skills and executive-level customer-facing acumen.
- Demonstrated ability to build and deliver quantified value narratives, not just product demonstrations.
- Comfort evaluating and positioning AI agent and agentic workflow capabilities to enterprise buyers, including where human oversight matters.
- Experience and/or desire to work with rapidly changing technology.
- Ability to multi-task, communicate priorities, and manage time effectively.
- Up to 50% travel.
Nice to have
- Experience with Professional Services Automation solutions.
- Experience with Salesforce CRM and the Salesforce platform.
- Domain expertise in professional services or customer success organizations.
- Previous experience in a sales organization at a software company.
- Hands-on experience demoing, configuring, or building with an AI agent, copilot, or automation platform (no coding required).
- Experience with competing or adjacent ERP and PSA applications such as NetSuite OpenAir, Kantata, Rocketlane, Workday, Oracle Fusion, SAP, or similar.
HOW WE WORK WITH AI
Certinia is an AI-forward company, and we expect this role to be too. You will use AI tools daily and help others do the same, with the judgment to know when a person needs to make the call. You do not need to write code or build agents from scratch; you do need to be able to tell what an AI agent actually did from what a slide claims it did, and to show customers the difference.
Beyond using AI well yourself, improving how AI is applied to the way we sell is part of the job, not a side project. You will be expected to experiment, pilot, share what you learn, and help the team adopt what works.
WHAT CERTINIA OFFERS
- A flexible work environment, with remote, hybrid, and flexible scheduling options for many roles.
- A wellness program with a monthly stipend toward gym memberships, mental health resources, or fitness equipment, plus access to wellness apps.
- The chance to shape how a leading Salesforce-native PSA platform is sold in the age of agentic AI.
Base Salary Range: $156,000-$191,247
Certinia is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate against any applicant or employee on the basis of race, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status, religion, national origin, ancestry, age, disability, military or veteran status, genetic information, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state, or local law. Certinia also provides reasonable accommodation for applicants and employees with disabilities; if you require an accommodation, please contact the People and Culture Team.