Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering for SLED Majors East

Skydio, the leading US drone company and world leader in autonomous flight, is seeking an experienced Solutions Engineering leader to join their team as Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering for SLED Majors East. This role involves managing some of the most complex programs in their portfolio, including multi-site, citywide Drone as First Responder deployments, statewide highway and transit programs, and federal work through DOJ, alongside the Canadian public safety business.

This is a remote role with approximately 30% travel required to support customer engagements, field activities, deployments, team onsites, and company events. The role reports to the Director, Solutions Engineering – SLED.

About the Team

The SLED Solutions Engineering team acts as the technical arm of Skydio's state and local go-to-market strategy. They bridge the gap between agencies and products, transforming operational challenges into program designs, validating capabilities in the field, and ensuring Skydio’s products are effectively used, integrated, and deployed at scale.

The team is evaluated based on technical win rate, trial and proof of concept outcomes, program expansion, site assessment quality, and the requirements they feed back into the product organization.

Solutions Engineers are integral to Skydio and collaborate closely with Key Account Leaders, Engineering, and Product to advance deal progression, build customer confidence, ensure successful deployments, and foster the long-term success of Public Safety sUAS programs.

Key Responsibilities

Lead the Team

• Hire, onboard, coach, and retain team members, ensuring clear ownership and coverage across territories, while developing team members beyond their current roles.
• Set high standards for technical quality in demos, trial plans, site assessments, and customer-facing documentation to ensure credibility with stakeholders like chiefs, sheriffs, or city councils.
• Manage capacity across segments, make strategic decisions on where Solutions Engineering resources are allocated, and communicate trade-offs to leadership.

Drive Technical Wins

• Oversee technical wins across the East majors portfolio, including citywide programs involving multiple docks and agencies.
• Serve as the senior technical escalation point for critical pursuits, deployments, and customer issues, actively resolving problems and being present in the field when necessary.
• Collaborate with Sales leadership on pipeline, forecast, and account planning, focusing on the land-and-expand strategy to convert initial deployments into broader citywide programs.

Own the Majors East Problem Set

• Ensure high-quality site assessments, as Solutions Engineers are directly responsible for verifying dock locations before deployment, with the quality of installations reflecting on the team.
• Maintain rigorous standards for proofs of concept, ensuring structured deployments tied to active opportunities with measurable operational value.
• Guide integration and airspace strategy, including CAD and dispatch, video and evidence management, streaming platforms, BVLOS approvals, waivers, COAs, and docked operations.
• Stay informed about the public sector procurement process, including cooperative contracts, grant-funded programs, and public sector buying cycles.

Represent the Customer Inside Skydio

• Act as the aggregated voice of the customer for Product and Engineering, translating field observations into prioritized, defensible requirements rather than a list of one-off requests.
• Develop enablement content, reference architectures, and reusable technical assets to support team scaling, while maintaining first-hand product knowledge through frequent hands-on use.

Qualifications

What Makes You a Good Fit:

• At least 5+ years of relevant technical experience, including time in a customer-facing technical role (e.g., solutions engineering, field engineering, or applications engineering).
• 1+ years of experience leading a technical team, either formally or as a technical lead with hiring and mentorship responsibilities. First-time managers with a proven track record of leading and developing people will be considered.
• Strong understanding of drone technology, Public Safety sUAS operations, and regulatory compliance, including Drone as First Responder concepts of operation and dock-based remote operations.
• Working knowledge of Public Safety technologies, including CAD, VMS, and related software platforms, and the ability to lead integration discussions.
• A track record of hiring, onboarding, and developing technical personnel, and retaining them.
• Comfort operating within a Sales organization, including owning a quota, deal strategy, and making informed decisions on committing technical resources.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to brief operators, program managers, and senior executives without altering the facts.
• Willingness to lead by example and do whatever is necessary to resolve customer situations.

Nice to Have

• Prior public safety experience as a sworn officer, firefighter, or agency UAS program lead.
• Experience in establishing a Drone as First Responder program from waiver through go-live, including dock-based, remote, and BVLOS operations at scale.
• Familiarity with grant funding pathways and cooperative purchasing vehicles used by state and local agencies.
• Working knowledge of Salesforce, Palantir, Databricks, or similar platforms.
• Track record of building and scaling a technical team during periods of rapid growth.

What Is Required

• Ability to travel approximately 30% of the time.
• Ability to lift up to 60 lbs unaided.
• Obtaining FAA Part 107 certification within the first 60 days of employment is strongly encouraged for all Skydio employees and required for certain positions.