Principal Solutions Engineer - CCaaS & AI Agents

Born out of the Stanford AI Lab, Cresta unlocks the true potential of customer experience by turning every conversation into a competitive advantage. Powered by over $270M in funding from a16z, Greylock, and Sequoia, Cresta’s unified AI platform combines virtual AI agents, real-time agent augmentation, and conversation intelligence for global leaders like United Airlines, Cox Communications, and Marriott.

As a Principal Solutions Engineer, you will operate at the forefront of the generative AI transformation in enterprise contact centers. Partnering with Sales Directors, you will serve as both a strategic business consultant and technical authority—architecting intelligent solutions that combine LLMs, SLMs, Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), and real-time AI assistance. You will lead technical discovery sessions across complex CCaaS platforms (Genesys, NICE, Five9, Amazon Connect), execute Proof-of-Value (POV) engagements, build financial ROI models, and present tailored platform demonstrations to C-level contact center executives.

Key Responsibilities

• Consultative Pre-Sales Ownership: Partner with Sales Directors to uncover prospective customers' operational workflows, technical architectures, and business objectives—mapping requirements directly to Cresta’s AI-powered capabilities.
• Technical Discovery & Architecture Design: Lead deep-dive discovery sessions to inspect customer telephony infrastructure (SIP, SBCs, ACDs, IVRs) and CCaaS/CRM integrations (Genesys, Five9, NICE, Amazon Connect, Salesforce).
• Tailored Product Demonstrations: Design and deliver persuasive product demonstrations illustrating how Cresta’s proprietary LLM/SLM architecture drives cost reduction, handle-time efficiency, and CSAT improvements.
• Proof-of-Value (POV) Technical Execution: Own the end-to-end technical design, deployment, and validation of client POVs—configuring real-time coaching workflows, telephony integrations, and virtual agent use cases.
• ROI Workshops & Business Case Modeling: Conduct structured ROI workshops to model quantifiable customer business cases around handle-time reduction, conversion lift, and operational savings.
• Cross-Functional Field-to-Product Feedback: Act as the technical liaison between Sales, Product Management, and Engineering—conveying field requirements, integration challenges, and market trends in NLP and contact center tech.
• Technical Thought Leadership: Maintain deep mastery of modern AI/ML architectures, including LLMs, SLMs, RAG models, speech recognition (STT/TTS), and contact center automation platforms.

Requirements

Pre-Sales & Contact Center AI Depth

• 7+ years of total experience in technical customer-facing roles, including 1 to 3+ years in pre-sales, solutions engineering, or technical consulting within enterprise software or contact center platforms.
• Contact Center & Telephony Domain Mastery: Deep architectural knowledge of telephony protocols (SIP, SBCs, ACDs, IVRs) and CCaaS ecosystems (Genesys, NICE, Five9, Amazon Connect).
• AI/ML & Generative AI Fluency: Solid understanding of modern machine learning applications, specifically Large Language Models (LLMs), Small Language Models (SLMs), RAG, and real-time conversational agent augmentation.
• Enterprise Integrations: Practical experience working with CRM systems (Salesforce), real-time API integrations, workforce management (WFM) systems, and SaaS architectures.
• Business Case & ROI Modeling: Demonstrated capability to run ROI discovery workshops and present business metrics to executive line-of-business leaders.
• Consultative Executive Communication: Outstanding storytelling and presentation skills, with a track record of simplifying complex AI concepts for both executive business stakeholders and deep technical teams.

Total Rewards & Benefits

• Compensation & Equity: Expected On-Target Earnings (OTE) range of $220,000 – $275,000 USD (base salary + variable target compensation with uncapped upside) + Cresta equity grants.
• Healthcare & Family Support: Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision insurance coverage for employees and dependents, plus paid parental leave.
• Remote Setup & Lifestyle: Dedicated home-office setup stipend + monthly wellness and communications allowances.
• Time Off & Retirement: Flexible PTO policy and 401(k) retirement savings plans.