Sales Applications Engineer — Career Path to India Country Sales Manager Rockstar

THE NO-NONSENSE SUMMARY: This posi­tion is intend­ed for tech­ni­cal­ly strong sales engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als who love to work with engi­neers from oth­er high-tech com­pa­nies to solve their man­u­fac­tur­ing chal­lenges using adhe­sives, chem­i­cals, and plas­tics. Report­ing to the Region­al Sales Man­ag­er, this posi­tion is meant for engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als with 3 — 10 years of expe­ri­ence in any relat­ed engi­neer­ing field. Be sure to read to the end of the descrip­tion to be sure you don’t miss an impor­tant detail.

THE ROLE
Yes, you read that right – we’re look­ing for a ROCKSTAR. If the title sounds uncon­ven­tion­al, it’s because CAPLINQ is too. We’re look­ing for that spe­cial some­one who has not one, but two com­ple­men­tary skills – the amaz­ing abil­i­ty to grasp and explain tech­ni­cal con­cepts and the abil­i­ty to man­age mul­ti­ple projects simultaneously. 

Let me come right out and say that we wel­come Sales Engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als from any relat­ed field with 3–5 years of expe­ri­ence who are inter­est­ed in prov­ing them­selves as Sales Engi­neer­ing pro­fes­sion­als before being pro­mot­ed to the Coun­try Sales Man­ag­er role. At the same time, if you have 5–8+ years of expe­ri­ence and think you are ready to han­dle the Coun­try Sales Man­ag­er role imme­di­ate­ly — then you are also wel­come to apply. Salary and ben­e­fits will be com­men­su­rate with expe­ri­ence and skill set.

Our cus­tomers don’t respond to old-fash­ioned sales pitch­es, and the term “Appli­ca­tions Engi­neer” bet­ter describes the work you’ll be doing than sales. Though the title will be “Sales Engi­neer”, this title refers more to your abil­i­ty to close sales based on your tech­ni­cal knowl­edge and cus­tomer sup­port. There will be lit­tle prospect­ing, and there will be no aggres­sive sales tac­tics or cold-call­ing involved. Your leads and projects will most­ly all come to you and it will be your respon­si­bil­i­ty to ser­vice, sup­port, and coor­di­nate a very diverse range of activ­i­ties and requests.

You will be suc­cess­ful in this posi­tion if you love div­ing into the tech­ni­cal details of our many prod­ucts and help­ing cus­tomers under­stand how to select and use the right prod­ucts for their appli­ca­tions. If you con­sid­er your­self more some­one who wants to help the cus­tomer than a pushy sales­man — keep reading

As a fast-grow­ing multi­na­tion­al, our prod­ucts and ser­vices have found a sweet-spot in the mar­ket. Our mar­ket­ing and devel­op­ment teams have cre­at­ed prod­ucts and con­tent that attract new multi­na­tion­al cus­tomers and now we’re look­ing for that spe­cial rock­star that is able to sell and sup­port them in the region.

Do you describe your­self as a proac­tive, super-orga­nized, enthu­si­as­tic, mul­ti­task­ing rock­star that likes to work with engi­neers on the tech­nolo­gies that will shape the next 20 years? Our cus­tomers are main­ly Amer­i­can and Euro­pean multi­na­tion­al man­u­fac­tur­ers in the Semi­con­duc­tor, eMo­bil­i­ty, Renew­able Ener­gy and Elec­tron­ics Assem­bly indus­tries, look­ing to define the next gen­er­a­tion 5G chips, elec­tric vehi­cles, bat­ter­ies, fuel cells, and major infra­struc­ture redesigns. Our cus­tomers will rely on you to rec­om­mend and sup­port projects with epox­ies, alloys, adhe­sives, ther­mal inter­face mate­ri­als, con­duc­tive plas­tics, and ion-exchange mem­branes. Cool, right?

Does this type of work inspire and moti­vate you? Then I encour­age you to read on. If on the oth­er hand, you’re already exhaust­ed read­ing this, I rec­om­mend you take a nap and check out anoth­er job post.

So, what will you be doing?
The posi­tion and respon­si­bil­i­ty will grow along with you. As a small, but fast-grow­ing com­pa­ny, the role will be excit­ing for you if you like work­ing in a small team and hav­ing a lot of free­dom to define your roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties. No two days will like­ly be the same.

Broad­ly speak­ing, your work will revolve around the fol­low­ing three activities:

1. Sales Appli­ca­tions Engi­neer (about 45% of your time)

You will inher­it an exist­ing cus­tomer base of projects and prod­ucts and new leads will come in from our tick­et­ing sys­tem (which will pre-screen them). You will be respon­si­ble to help cus­tomers to select prod­ucts as well as the appli­ca­tion meth­ods to use them successfully.

Exam­ples of activities:

• Reply to tick­et inquiries and send detailed emails to cus­tomers with prod­uct and appli­ca­tion data
• Work with Mar­ket­ing to research and rec­om­mend prod­ucts for cus­tomers’ applications
• Work with Appli­ca­tion Engi­neer­ing to sup­port cus­tomer projects with sam­ples, data and test results
• Put togeth­er Pow­er­Point and sales pre­sen­ta­tions high­light­ing prod­uct fea­tures and applications

2. Project Man­age­ment (about 40% of your time)

Since the sales cycle is long (approx. 2 years), you will be respon­si­ble for approx. 60 — 80 projects big and small all at var­i­ous stages of devel­op­ment. You will need to pri­or­i­tize the most impor­tant ones on a week­ly basis to make sure each has a sta­tus and next action items to keep the projects mov­ing forward. 

Exam­ples of activities:

• Update CRM week­ly to include cur­rent sta­tus and “Next Action Items” for your­self & team members
• Call cus­tomers to make sure they have what they need to move forward
• Call sup­pli­ers to update them on cur­rent projects and inform them of any­thing you need from them 
• Send month­ly sum­ma­ry reports to sup­pli­ers and review sta­tus and next action item

3. Out­side Sales Engi­neer (about 15% of your time)

About 4–5 days per month you will trav­el to cus­tomers to give demos, make pre­sen­ta­tions and gen­er­al­ly fol­low up on projects and ini­ti­ate new ones. You will have face-to-face meet­ings with the engi­neers, pur­chasers, and project man­agers who use our prod­ucts and expect tech­ni­cal sup­port and follow-up.

Exam­ples of activities:

• Arrange meet­ings with cus­tomers to review exist­ing and ini­ti­ate new projects
• Line tri­als of our prod­ucts where you will be test­ing along­side the engineers
• Meet­ing with pur­chas­ing man­agers to dis­cuss our prod­uct offerings
• Gen­er­al­ly, main­tain a rela­tion­ship with the cus­tomers by being avail­able and supportive

DESIRED SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE 

What mind­set do you require?
Skills can be learned. Mind­sets, though they can be learned too, are more often a part of who you are. We val­ue the mind­set at least, if not more than either expe­ri­ence or hard skills.

1. Tech­ni­cal­ly Curi­ous – Our prod­ucts are chem­i­cals, adhe­sives & plas­tics that can be bor­ing unless you love dig­ging into details that solve com­plex appli­ca­tion prob­lems. You will be very suc­cess­ful if you love to dive into the prod­ucts and appli­ca­tions your cus­tomers are work­ing on to under­stand what prob­lems they are try­ing to solve and how our prod­ucts can help them solve them. 
2. Per­son­al Devel­op­ment & Con­tin­u­ous Improve­ment – Peo­ple and process­es can always get bet­ter. We’re look­ing for some­one who ques­tions every process to see if there’s no room for improve­ment. Like­wise, there are oppor­tu­ni­ties for advance­ment if you want to be more than just a sales engi­neer and can prove you can learn.
3. Inde­pen­dent Learn­er – Our Euro­pean teams will teach & train you tech­ni­cal­ly, but part of the train­ing will be to watch videos and do inde­pen­dent study when time zones don’t over­lap. You will be suc­cess­ful if you love to learn independently.
4. An Over-Deliv­er­er – Cus­tomers often send short emails for a prod­uct rec­om­men­da­tion. Instead of a one-line email reply with the prod­uct, you will be suc­cess­ful if you pre­fer to give them the prod­uct rec­om­men­da­tion, detailed rea­son for the choice of prod­uct, appli­ca­tion notes, TDS & SDS and links to oth­er prod­ucts that they might be inter­est­ed in. 

What skills do you NOT need?
Before we list the skills you do need, it is impor­tant that you know what skills or expe­ri­ence we do NOT require:

• Detailed Prod­uct knowl­edge: Though it will be help­ful if you already have a back­ground in adhe­sives, chem­i­cals, & plas­tics, all will be taught on the job. Fur­ther­more, if you are curi­ous and an inde­pen­dent learn­er, you will be up to speed in no time.

• Lots of work expe­ri­ence: This is meant to be a mid-lev­el posi­tion. CAPLINQ is dif­fer­ent. Too much expe­ri­ence and we need to actu­al­ly UNTRAIN bad habits from old school employ­ers. You will learn and train on the job. If the activ­i­ties described sound just the kind of work you want to do, but may not have enough expe­ri­ence, you are encour­aged to apply. Train­ing and coach­ing will be provided. 

What skills do you require?

There are very few hard skills that are required, but the ide­al can­di­date would be one who:

• • Has a tech­ni­cal degree or equiv­a­lent expe­ri­ence in Engi­neer­ing, or Bach­e­lor of Science
  • Has a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el of writ­ten and spo­ken Eng­lish — espe­cial­ly when reply­ing by email
  • Asks ques­tions, then asks more ques­tions, then asks even more questions
  • Is very orga­nized, and likes to have a place for every­thing and every­thing in its place
  • Is a strong plan­ner and orga­niz­er and thrives in get­ting things done 
  • Is a Google pow­er-user, for­ev­er ask­ing Google ques­tions for answers he/she doesn’t know 

• Pays atten­tion to detail. The very last para­graph of this job vacan­cy has very impor­tant infor­ma­tion. Be sure you read it twice before applying.

Skills not required, but that get bonus points (any of them count):

The job we have in mind may not require these skills, but they will give you a head’s start:

1. An Engi­neer­ing Degree: You do not need to be an engi­neer, but our prod­ucts are by nature tech­ni­cal, so you will need to be able to grasp the con­cepts. If you want to learn, we’re able to teach.
2. Project man­age­ment expe­ri­ence: You will need to man­age mul­ti­ple projects simul­ta­ne­ous­ly. This means report­ing inter­nal­ly as well as exter­nal­ly to both cus­tomers and sup­pli­ers. Strong project man­age­ment skills will help you enormously.
3. Pre­sen­ta­tion skills: You will be pre­sent­ing all the time, be it inter­nal­ly or to cus­tomers or sup­pli­ers. If you are com­fort­able in front of a pub­lic audi­ence you will be able to use those skills here.

WHY WORK FOR CAPLINQ?

1. Col­lab­o­rate with out­stand­ing peo­ple: We hire only the best. Our stan­dards are high and our employ­ees enjoy work­ing along­side oth­er high achievers.
2. All employ­ees par­tic­i­pate in Prof­it Shar­ing plans
3. Sales engi­neers receive com­mis­sions on sales
4. Make an imme­di­ate impact: New employ­ees can expect to be giv­en real respon­si­bil­i­ty for the growth of the com­pa­ny. You are empow­ered to per­form as soon as you join the team!
5. Gain well-round­ed expe­ri­ence: CAPLINQ offers a diverse and dynam­ic envi­ron­ment where you will get the chance to work direct­ly with exec­u­tives and devel­op exper­tise across mul­ti­ple areas of the business.

There is no need to send your CV unless it looks awe­some and you want to impress us with how it looks. Oth­er­wise, we will use your LinkedIn pro­file (bet­ter make sure it is complete!). 

Instead, can­di­dates wish­ing to apply are request­ed to send an email to hr@caplinq.com that includes:

• A link to your LinkedIn pro­file (not a CV)

• A one-page, per­son­al cov­er letter

Let me repeat that last part in a dif­fer­ent way… We are look­ing for peo­ple who stand out from the crowd with a well-writ­ten, enthu­si­as­tic one-page let­ter telling us why this posi­tion speaks to you and what you could bring to the team. 

If all you do is send a CV (we told you not to), and no cov­er let­ter your appli­ca­tion will be dis­card­ed with­out even being read.