Presales Engineer

Pre-Sales Engineer / Solution Architect (m/w/d), OT Security, DACH

About the client

Our client is a fast-growing OT security vendor protecting critical energy infrastructure, including substations, wind and solar parks, battery storage sites and control centres. They combine on-site sensor technology with a cloud-based monitoring platform and co-managed security services.

Location : home-based in the DACH region (40-60% travel across the region to substations, wind and solar parks, BESS sites and control centres)

Reports to: Director of Sales Engineering.

Type : Full time, permanent.

You will be the technical lead on every DACH opportunity: discovery, proof of value, security and the technical close. DACH buyers scrutinise architecture, data residency and regulatory fit harder than most markets, so this role carries more compliance and documentation weight than a typical presales post.

Key responsibilities

• Design sensor placement and collection architecture: passive monitoring via SPAN or TAP, segmentation and zones and conduits per IEC 62443, cellular or satellite backhaul at remote parks, and low-bandwidth sites.
• Demonstrate the client's monitoring platform and run proofs of value against written success criteria.
• Scope and quote the service, including monitoring coverage and SLAs.
• Own the technical response set: RFPs, Ausschreibungen including public procurement, security questionnaires, and architecture reviews.
• Handle the DACH compliance conversation credibly: NIS2 and the German transposition, the BSI Sicherheitskatalog under section 11 EnWG, section 8a BSIG evidence and B3S, ISO 27001 and ISO 27019, BSI C5 for the SaaS component, IEC 62443 and NIST CSF 2.0. For Austria the NISG regime, for Switzerland the ISG reporting duty to the NCSC.
• Lead the data-protection and works-council dimension: GDPR and BDSG, DPA and TOM documentation, EU data residency, sub-processor lists, and the co-determination questions a Betriebsrat will raise about monitoring under section 87 BetrVG.
• Feed field findings into product and engineering, and maintain German-language reference architectures, deployment runbooks, demo environments and competitive battlecards.
• Hand over cleanly to delivery and support, and stay engaged through first value.

Essential experience

• Five or more years in pre-sales engineering, solution architecture or technical consulting for security or infrastructure products, with at least three years selling into DACH.
• Demonstrable experience selling OT security services, including co-managed models. You can present SLAs, triage tiers, escalation paths and shared responsibility.
• Hands-on OT and ICS familiarity: SCADA, PLCs, RTUs, HMIs, historians.
• Experience deploying or integrating a physical on-premise appliance or sensor, including outage windows, site access and safety inductions.
• Working knowledge of OT monitoring platforms (Tenable OT, Nozomi, Dragos, Claroty) and firewall estates (Fortinet, Check Point, Palo Alto, Cradlepoint).
• Strong networking fundamentals: VLANs, routing, NAT, VPN, firewall rule review, syslog and API-based collection.
• German at native or C2 level and professional English. Both are essential: German for the customer, English for the engineering team.
• Eligible to work in the region without sponsorship. Valid driving licence.

Desirable

• Renewable energy sector experience: wind, utility-scale solar, battery storage, an IPP, a Stadtwerk, a Verteilnetzbetreiber or an asset manager.
• Familiarity with Redispatch 2.0, VDE-AR-N 4110, the BDEW and OE whitepaper on secure control systems, or KRITIS threshold assessments under the BSI-KritisV.
• Certifications such as GICSP, GRID, CISSP, ISO 27001 Lead Implementer, or vendor OT accreditations.
• Cloud and API fluency: reading an OpenAPI spec, building a Postman collection or short script to prove an integration.
• Swiss or Austrian market exposure
• Experience at an early-stage or scaling vendor where pre-sales is being built rather than inherited.