Senior Manager, Solutions Engineering - Commercial, Site Security

Skydio is the leading US drone company and the world leader in autonomous flight, the key technology for the future of drones and aerial mobility. The Skydio team combines deep expertise in artificial intelligence, best-in-class hardware and software product development, operational excellence, and customer obsession to empower a broader, more diverse audience of drone users, from utility inspectors https://www.skydio.com/solutions/energy-and-utilities to first responders https://www.skydio.com/solutions/public-safety, soldiers in battlefield scenarios https://www.skydio.com/solutions/national-security/tactical-isr, and beyond https://www.skydio.com/solutions. ABOUT THE ROLE Site security is the fastest-growing segment within Skydio's commercial business, and we are building a new market category in autonomous site security. We are hiring the Solutions Engineering leader for this team. You will lead quota-carrying Solutions Engineers dedicated to site security customers, partnering directly with Account Executives on territory, along with a Site Security Solutions Specialist who brings deep domain expertise to the team's most complex pursuits. You own your team's number, the technical sales motion behind it, and the people who deliver it. Your mandate is to build a team that wins consistently, forecasts accurately, and scales with the segment as it grows, carrying customers from a first site into fleet-wide security programs. This is a remote role. Travel of up to 60% is required to support customer engagements, POCs, site assessments, team field activities, and company events. This role reports to the Director, Solutions Engineering – Commercial. ABOUT THE TEAM The Commercial Solutions Engineering team is the technical authority behind every commercial engagement. We sit between the customer and the product: running technical discovery, designing solutions, executing paid dock trials, and carrying customers from a first site through fleet-wide rollout. The Site Security team is the growth engine of Commercial. Its Solutions Engineers focus exclusively on security buyers — data centers, departments of corrections, military installations, corporate campuses, healthcare, manufacturing, and executive protection — and operate against a shared quota with their Account Executive counterparts. The team's Solutions Specialist provides deeper domain expertise across the team's pursuits. The team is measured on quota attainment, technical win rate, trial and proof of concept outcomes, program expansion, and the quality of requirements we push back into the product organization. Solutions Engineers work closely with Account Executives, Solutions Specialists, Deployment Engineers, and the Launch Team to support deal progression, customer confidence, successful deployments, and the long-term success of commercial UAS programs. HOW YOU’LL MAKE AN IMPACT LEAD THE TEAM - Hire, develop, and retain a team of quota-carrying Site Security Solutions Engineers and a Site Security Solutions Specialist; own ramp, enablement, and career progression. - Scale the team ahead of segment growth: plan headcount against pipeline and approved AE-to-SE coverage ratios, and build a hiring profile that brings in security-fluent technical sellers. - Own team performance against quota. Run regular pipeline and deal reviews, coach on security-focused discovery, solution design, demos, and trial execution, and hold the team to a high bar on technical win rate. - Manage territory and account alignment between SEs and Account Executives, and balance workload so coverage stays strong as demand increases. - Define how the team engages the Specialist: when to pull them in, how to brief them, and how work hands back to the account SE, so specialist time goes to the deals where deep domain expertise decides the outcome. - Develop people beyond the seat they are in, including career paths, promotion cases, and succession inside your team. DRIVE TECHNICAL WINS - Partner with security sales leadership on forecasting, deal strategy, and pipeline health; own the technical forecast for your team and call risk early. - Personally engage on strategic and category-defining pursuits where a leader's involvement changes the outcome, without becoming the bottleneck. - Establish a repeatable technical sales motion for priority sub-segments — data centers, departments of corrections, and military installations — and extend it into corporate campuses, healthcare, manufacturing, and executive protection. - Drive expansion by ensuring trials convert and first deployments grow into multi-site and fleet-wide security programs, in partnership with Deployment Engineering and the Launch Team. - Support executive briefings, customer summits, and category-defining content alongside Marketing and Product. BUILD THE SITE SECURITY PROBLEM TECHNICAL PRACTICE - With your Specialist, build and maintain Skydio's security technical playbook — patrol and detection zone design patterns, alarm and event-triggered response concepts of operation, operator handoff into existing GSOC procedures, and reference architectures by sub-segment — and make sure every SE on the team can run it. - Define standards for site assessment, RF and site-readiness planning, dock siting, and installation scoping; drive consistency across engagements to reduce project friction and rework. - Equip the team to handle integration conversations with VMS, access control, and third-party AI and computer vision platforms, and guide enterprise security reviews, InfoSec questionnaires, and on-premises deployment requirements. - Build scalable technical assets — reference architectures, demo environments and scripts, workflow documentation, and playbooks — that shorten ramp time for new Site Security SEs. REPRESENT THE CUSTOMER INSIDE SKYDIO - Translate field requirements into PRDs and structured product input, with particular focus on AI and computer vision capability gaps that gate security buying decisions. - Aggregate feedback across your team's deals to give Product a clear, prioritized view of what security customers need to buy and expand. - Maintain first-hand product knowledge through frequent hands-on use, sufficient to engage meaningfully with both customers and your own team. WHAT MAKES YOU A GOOD FIT - Prior experience as a Solutions Engineer, Solutions Architect, Solutions Specialist, or equivalent technical pre-sales role in physical security, video surveillance, or critical infrastructure protection. - Direct domain experience in corporate security, GSOC operations, law enforcement, corrections, or military base security is strongly preferred. - Deep working knowledge of the physical security technology stack — VMS platforms, access control and PACS, perimeter intrusion detection, and video analytics. - Clear-eyed understanding of AI and computer vision capability boundaries in a security context, and the ability to have an honest technical con