Sales Application Engineer

Position Overview:

The Sales Application Engineer (SAE) for Shop Solutions serves as the technical and commercial bridge between customers, Sales, Product Management, Design & Development, Project Management, Operations, and external partners. The role translates customer and market requirements into feasible, competitive, and profitable solutions across the Shop Solutions portfolio, including standard, configured, and engineer-to-order applications. The SAE supports opportunity qualification, solution development, layouts and specifications, technical proposals, customer presentations, site validation, and project handoff. This position also captures voice-of-customer feedback, supports portfolio and product improvement, and helps ensure proposed solutions align with customer needs, Wanzl capabilities, applicable requirements, delivery expectations, and margin objectives.

The position will be located at Wanzl North America’s Corporate Center in Denver, NC, with travel to customer, supplier, and Wanzl locations as required.

Company and Opportunity Overview WNA’s vision is to be a leading entrepreneurial player in terms of market share, agility, and game-changing solutions. WNA is a solution provider, creating value along the supply chain of our customers, from online purchase to their customers. WNA is headquartered in the Charlotte Metro Area, North Carolina. With around 500 employees and ~$200M of sales, WNA focuses on the retail and distribution market segments with marquee customers such as Walmart, Amazon, and the majority of large grocers and retailers. In addition to being the largest manufacturer of shopping carts in North America, WNA has three additional main product segments as well as a Service business, providing turnkey solutions for customer guidance (Access Systems), Shelving & Fixtures, and Material Handling products. Shop Solutions provides retail equipment and store-environment solutions that help customers improve merchandising, product presentation, shopper experience, operational efficiency, and execution. The segment combines standard products, configured solutions, and engineer-to-order capabilities to support customer programs from initial concept and application development through technical validation, product launch, and deployment. Additionally, WNA offers a range of digital solutions integrated into our products, including advanced shopping cart containment systems, smart exit gate technology, and innovations for autonomous and semi-autonomous retail stores. We are continuously expanding and enhancing our digital offerings to meet evolving customer needs and drive industry advancement. WNA is part of the Wanzl Group, headquartered in Germany, and has 12 plants in 8 countries, providing comprehensive, solutions-driven service and expert knowledge of local markets for customers across the globe through their 360° service.

Key Responsibilities:

• Provide technical and application support to the Shop Solutions sales team, enabling clear communication of product capabilities, customer value, limitations, lead times, and solution trade-offs.
• Partner with Sales and Product Management to qualify opportunities against the Shop Solutions right-to-win, portfolio fit, technical feasibility, resource requirements, commercial potential, and margin expectations.
• Serve as the technical subject matter expert during customer discovery, presentations, design reviews, product demonstrations, and solution-development discussions.
• Capture customer requirements and translate them into clear scopes of work, layouts, specifications, bills of material, assumptions, exclusions, and recommended solutions.
• Develop and support technical proposals that align customer specifications with Wanzl capabilities, manufacturing constraints, sourcing options, installation requirements, and target economics.
• Act as the liaison among Sales, Product Management, Design & Development, Project Management, Operations, Estimating, suppliers, and customers to drive alignment and timely decisions.
• Participate in customer meetings, store walks, site surveys, pre-installation reviews, prototype reviews, and pilot evaluations to validate requirements and identify execution risks.
• Develop and review technical documentation, including product specifications, CAD drawings, store layouts, submittals, proposal content, and internal project-pricing inputs.
• Create and maintain CAD drawings and application layouts for customer proposals, design validation, internal costing, project handoff, and installation planning.
• Support design validation, prototype development, testing, sample reviews, and field feedback for standard, configured, and engineer-to-order Shop Solutions products.
• Identify scope gaps, technical risks, compliance needs, installation dependencies, and change impacts early; document assumptions and escalate issues that could affect cost, timing, quality, or customer commitments.
• Contribute voice-of-customer, competitive, and field insights to product attributes, portfolio priorities, product roadmaps, value propositions, and continuous-improvement activities.
• Provide technical training, application tools, and product guidance to Sales and other customer-facing teams. Support trade shows, customer innovation sessions, and other industry events as required.
• Experience in sales application engineering, technical sales, product engineering, store planning, retail fixtures, or a related customer-facing technical role; retail solutions experience is preferred.
• Strong technical aptitude with the ability to understand, simplify, and explain engineering concepts, drawings, product specifications, and application constraints.
• Ability to convert incomplete customer needs into structured requirements, solution concepts, assumptions, and actionable next steps.
• Commercial awareness, including understanding of solution cost drivers, margin implications, scope control, and the trade-offs among customization, speed, cost, and scalability.
• Excellent written, verbal, and presentation skills, including the ability to communicate technical information to non-technical stakeholders.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate across Sales, Product Management, Design & Development, Project Management, Operations, suppliers, and customers while managing multiple priorities.
• Proficiency in technical documentation, proposal development, CAD/layout creation, and design-review processes.

Familiarity with new product development, engineer-to-order workflows, stage-gate governance, and change control is preferred. Strong problem-solving skills, attention to detail, urgency, and a proactive approach to customer and project needs.

• Strong problem-solving skills and a proactive approach to addressing customer needs.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Industrial Design, Business, , or a related field; equivalent relevant experience may be considered.
• Minimum five (5) years of relevant technical, engineering, retail solutions, fixture, manufacturing, or customer-application experience in a retail setting.
• Proficiency in SolidWorks, AutoCAD, or comparable CAD and layout software.
• Proficiency with Microsoft 365 applications; experience with CRM, ERP, project-management, or product-data systems is beneficial.
• Experience developing customer-facing technical proposals, drawings, layouts, scopes of work, and solution recommendations.
• Demonstrated project coordination, prioritization, and cross-functional leadership capability.
• Highly organized, detail-oriented, and effective in written and verbal communication.
• Strong customer-service orientation with the confidence to challenge unclear requirements and recommend practical alternatives.
• Self-motivated, action-oriented, and able to work independently within a matrixed organization.
• Ability to travel up to 35%, including occasional international travel.