Sales Engineering Manager, EMEA

Description

About Port

Port is the Agentic SDLC Platform. The way engineering teams build software is constantly evolving, and every new wave of AI operating across the SDLC makes engineering more powerful, but also more complex and chaotic. Port gives teams one platform to build, govern, and operate the software development lifecycle, so every team can move as fast as technology allows.

Following our $100M Series C, we're in an exciting stage of significant growth and global expansion. As a product-led company, we believe the recipe for success is a world-class product that speaks for itself.

The Role

Developers, platform engineers, SREs, and security engineers are navigating a fundamental shift in how software gets built: more AI, more complexity, more pressure to move fast. Port exists to bring order to that chaos, and the SE team is at the center of making that vision land with some of the world's most sophisticated engineering organizations.

We're building out EMEA SE leadership as we scale, and we need someone who knows what it takes to win technical deals and is ready to put most of their energy into nurturing and growing a team of SEs. You'll own the pre-sales technical motion across EMEA, set the standard for how great SE work gets done, and make sure your team has everything they need to run sharp POCs, deliver compelling demos, and close 6–7 figure enterprise deals.

Your primary job is to coach, develop, and build the team, and to jump in on customer calls for competitive situations, escalations, and strategic accounts when it matters. This is a fast-moving, high-ownership role at a company that's growing fast and is still early enough that what you build here will shape how the function operates globally. 

About Your Day-to-Day

Lead and develop the EMEA SE team

• Manage, coach, and grow a team of 3+ Mid-Market and Enterprise SEs across EMEA
• Run 1:1s and deal reviews that sharpen both technical skills and commercial judgment
• Build a culture of technical excellence, knowledge sharing, and continuous improvement

Be the technical authority when it counts

• Maintain deep enough fluency to jump in on critical demos, POC escalations, or competitive calls when the team needs it
• Partner with AEs, Sales leadership, and Product on deal strategy for strategic and complex accounts
• Serve as an escalation point, not a first responder

Build the team you want to have

• Own EMEA SE hiring end-to-end: work with recruiters, run interviews, and close great candidates
• Work closely with the technical enablement team to maintain and improve onboarding that gets new SEs up to speed quickly and sets them up for success from day one

Set the standard for how SEs operate

• Define and continuously refine SE best practices: POC frameworks, qualification criteria, discovery methodology, and handoff standards
• Influence the playbooks and processes that make the team consistent and scalable
• Champion the use of AI and automation within the SE workflow
• Partner with GTM Automation to identify and deploy tooling that gives the team real leverage

Close the loop with Product

• Synthesize deal-level insights into structured, actionable feedback for Product and Engineering
• Be a credible voice from the field that helps shape roadmap priorities

Who You'll Work With

You'll report directly to the Director of Sales Engineering and work closely with EMEA Sales leadership, the AE teams, Technical Success, and support teams. Your counterparts in the Americas and APJ are part of the broader SE leadership team that you'll plug into. You'll have a regular seat at the table in Product and Engineering discussions, bringing the field perspective where it matters. You'll partner with GTM Automation on the tooling that helps your team punch above their weight.

Requirements

• 6+ years of strong enterprise SE experience. You've run technical evaluations, led POCs, and helped close large, complex deals. 
• 2+ years of experience managing a team of Sales Engineers or Solutions Consultants at a software company, preferably in a startup environment
• Experience in developer tooling, DevOps, platform engineering (including internal developer portals, CI/CD, and cloud-native infrastructure), or an adjacent technical domain is a strong plus
• A track record of hiring and developing SE talent, not just inheriting a team
• Hands-on technically: you're comfortable taking over a demo, covering a POC check-in call, or whiteboarding architecture when it counts
• Comfortable in front of executives. You’ve described the value of software you’ve sold to rooms full of executives at large and small companies. You can easily describe this value in any given customer’s terms
• Ability to travel within EMEA for customer meetings and team visits
• Builder mindset: you create process and structure, not just manage it