Merchant Sales & Solution Engineer
Posted on: January 26, 2026 | Remote-Global
Company Name: Automattic (WooCommerce)
Application Deadline: Open Until Filled (2 Positions Available)
Team: WooCommerce Sales | Reports To: Sales Leadership
Division: Go-To-Market (GTM) | Employment Type: Full-Time
Location: Remote (Prioritizing USA, Canada, UK, Ireland)
Schedule: Flexible (Self-Directed) | Experience Level: 05-07 Years
Build the Future of Open Commerce
At WooCommerce, we're on a mission to democratize commerce through open source technology. As the world's most popular e-commerce platform powering millions of online stores globally, we're now seeking an exceptional Merchant Sales & Solution Engineer to build our technical sales motion from the ground up—architecting merchant solutions that leverage the WordPress/WooCommerce ecosystem, strategic partner integrations, optimal hosting, and Automattic's comprehensive product portfolio.
This isn't just another sales engineering role—this is WooCommerce's competitive tip of the spear. You'll be the only team with the explicit remit to directly and forcefully compete with our largest competitors in e-commerce. This team serves as the crucible for our messaging, value proposition, and technology at scale, defining how we win in competitive situations against closed, proprietary platforms.
You'll work with technically-savvy midmarket merchants (generating $1M-$50M in Gross Merchandise Value) who are evaluating WooCommerce in competitive scenarios, architecting comprehensive solutions that combine WordPress/WooCommerce core with our rich plugin ecosystem, Automattic products like WooPayments, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and Blaze, plus strategic partner integrations spanning payments, shipping, tax, marketing, point-of-sale systems, and CRM/ERP platforms.
This is fundamentally a builder role. If you thrive in zero-to-one environments where urgency runs in your blood, this position offers the opportunity to set the playbook that will define how WooCommerce sells for the next 18-24 months. Your on-the-ground feedback about what merchants need, what's blocking deals, and ecosystem gaps will directly shape our product roadmap, go-to-market strategy, time-to-first-value, and how we set up customers for retention and expansion.
Position Overview
The Merchant Sales & Solution Engineer role represents a unique opportunity to build technical sales infrastructure at one of the internet's most influential commerce platforms. You'll operate at the intersection of technical architecture, solution design, and revenue generation, carrying quota while simultaneously establishing the frameworks, playbooks, and standards that will scale across the entire organization.
Your responsibilities will split approximately 75% toward architecting solutions and closing deals, with 25% dedicated to building culture, creating playbooks, and enabling the broader team. This balance ensures you remain deeply connected to merchant needs and competitive dynamics while translating those insights into repeatable processes that drive organizational growth.
The role demands someone who can navigate the open source ecosystem with expertise, understanding which plugins and partners solve specific problems, how integration patterns work across the WordPress/WooCommerce stack, and when merchants should build custom functionality versus leverage existing solutions. Understanding how successful technical sales professionals evaluate and position open source platforms often involves researching industry trends and best practices through various professional resources focused on solution engineering and competitive positioning strategies.
You'll work primarily with inbound, event-generated, and partner-sourced leads representing merchants conducting serious platform evaluations. These aren't casual shoppers—they're sophisticated buyers comparing WooCommerce against Shopify Plus, Adobe Commerce (Magento), BigCommerce, and other enterprise platforms. Your ability to architect compelling solutions, demonstrate technical superiority, and build persuasive business cases will determine whether these merchants choose open commerce or lock themselves into proprietary ecosystems.
The fully remote nature of this position provides flexibility regarding where and when you work, trusting you to manage your time effectively while meeting quota commitments and team collaboration needs. Many professionals exploring careers in technical sales research how distributed companies structure sales organizations, maintain deal velocity across time zones, and create the support systems that enable remote sellers to succeed consistently.
Key Responsibilities
Architect Solutions & Close Deals (75%)
Quota Responsibility and Revenue Generation
- Carry Midmarket Quota: Own revenue targets for net-new midmarket merchants generating $1M-$50M in GMV, working primarily with inbound leads, event prospects, and partner-generated opportunities engaged in competitive platform evaluations
- Lead Discovery with Immediate Value: Solve merchant problems from the very first conversation by answering technical questions, recommending specific plugins, troubleshooting architectural challenges, and suggesting optimal integrations—building trust through consultative expertise that accelerates deal cycles
- Navigate Complex Sales Processes: Guide deals through procurement, legal review, security assessments, and multi-stakeholder decision processes typical of midmarket commerce platform selections
Solution Architecture and Technical Design
- Architect Comprehensive Solutions: Design end-to-end commerce platforms blending WooCommerce core functionality with carefully selected plugins, WordPress extensions, strategic partner solutions (payments, shipping, tax, marketing, POS, ERP/CRM), appropriate hosting infrastructure, Automattic products, and agency services for custom development
- Master the Open Source Ecosystem: Maintain deep knowledge of which plugins and partners solve specific merchant problems, understand integration patterns across the WordPress/WooCommerce stack, and advise clients on when to build custom functionality versus buy existing solutions versus partner with specialized providers
- Design Integration Architecture: Orchestrate coherent solutions that blend plugins, partner APIs, custom development, and hosted services while managing potential conflicts, performance implications, and maintenance considerations
Demonstration and Proof of Concept
- Deliver Winning Demos: Create customized demonstrations tailored to specific merchant use cases, adapting on the fly during presentations to address emerging questions, simplifying complex architectures into understandable narratives that resonate with both technical and business stakeholders
- Build Targeted Demo Environments: Construct working environments that showcase exactly what merchants need to see, proving WooCommerce can handle their specific requirements rather than presenting generic feature tours
- Rapid Prototyping: Spin up working examples quickly to answer "can it do X?" questions definitively, leveraging your technical skills to build proof-of-concept implementations that move deals forward
Business Case Development and Value Selling
- Build Compelling TCO Models: Construct total cost of ownership analyses comparing WooCommerce solutions (including platform, extensions, hosting, payments, and partner costs) against closed platforms, demonstrating long-term economic advantages of open source flexibility
- Position Strategic Partners: Effectively present solutions from partners like ShipStation, Avalara, Klaviyo, and others, coordinating subject matter experts into deals when specialized knowledge will advance opportunities
- Navigate Competitive Situations: Set competitive landmines that surface requirements favoring open source approaches, expose lock-in risks and hidden costs in proprietary platforms, and position WooCommerce's flexibility, data ownership, and extensibility as decisive advantages
Deal Management and Closing
- Own the Close: Navigate procurement processes, address technical and commercial objections, deliver mutual action plans that create accountability, and drive opportunities to signed contracts
- Multi-Thread Complex Opportunities: Build relationships across merchant organizations spanning technical teams, marketing, finance, operations, and executive leadership, ensuring all stakeholders understand how WooCommerce serves their specific needs
- Manage Deal Velocity: Balance thorough discovery and solution design with urgency required to win competitive evaluations before prospects select alternative platforms
Professionals pursuing careers in technical sales for open source platforms often benefit from understanding how solution engineers balance technical depth with commercial acumen. Researching effective strategies for competitive platform sales through industry publications and professional networks can provide valuable context about what distinguishes top-performing solution engineers in fast-paced technology environments.
Build Culture, Playbooks & Enable Organization (25%)
Standard-Setting and Playbook Development
- Establish Solution Patterns: Document your successful solution architectures, integration blueprints, partner positioning frameworks, and qualification criteria so they become the playbook that enables organizational scaling
- Create Repeatable Assets: Build solution templates, partner positioning guides, TCO calculators, competitive battle cards, discovery frameworks, and other resources that accelerate deal cycles and ensure consistency
- Document What Works: Capture deal patterns, merchant segmentation insights, partner engagement triggers, and qualification frameworks based on real-world successes and failures
Voice of Market and Strategic Input
- Influence Product Roadmap: Channel frontline feedback about which integrations merchants need most urgently, where WooCommerce must evolve to remain competitive, missing ecosystem pieces blocking deals, and feature gaps preventing expansion into valuable segments
- Shape Customer Lifecycle Strategy: Provide insights about effective onboarding patterns, retention risks emerging during implementation, expansion signals customer success should monitor, and handoff processes that set merchants up for long-term success
- Drive GTM Strategy: Inform decisions about pricing structures, packaging options, positioning statements, competitive intelligence, and market segmentation based on actual merchant conversations and deal outcomes
Cross-Functional Coordination
- Collaborate with Product Teams: Work with product management and engineering on identifying gaps, communicating risks, prioritizing features based on revenue impact, and validating that roadmap items address real merchant needs
- Partner with Payments and Strategic Partnerships: Coordinate co-selling motions, provide feedback on partnership value, suggest new integrations that would unlock deal categories, and help partners understand how to position their solutions effectively
- Engage Agency Partnerships: Work with Automattic for Agencies on scalable enablement programs, identify when agencies should engage in sales cycles, and help agencies understand merchant needs they can address through custom development
Internal Enablement and Knowledge Transfer
- Train Cross-Functional Teams: Enable customer success, marketing, and partnership teams on solution architectures, ecosystem capabilities, and merchant needs so the entire organization develops deeper market understanding
- Onboard New Hires: As the team scales, your playbooks, documentation, and direct mentorship will accelerate new solution engineers' ramp-to-productivity
- Share Market Intelligence: Regularly communicate what you're learning about merchant needs, competitive dynamics, emerging trends, and ecosystem evolution to keep the organization strategically informed
Understanding how technology companies translate frontline sales insights into organizational knowledge and scalable processes represents an important aspect of building effective go-to-market teams. Many professionals research best practices in sales enablement and knowledge management through various business resources to understand how high-performing organizations capture and leverage market intelligence.
Required Skills and Qualifications
Builder Mentality and Cultural Fit
Urgency and Competitive Fire
- Bring relentless urgency and competitive drive—WooCommerce operates under pressure in a fast-moving market where deals are won and lost based on execution speed and solution quality
- Thrive in ambiguous, zero-to-one environments where you'll build processes, standards, and playbooks without perfect systems or established frameworks already in place
- Demonstrate comfort being "first"—setting standards, making judgment calls, and establishing patterns that others will follow
Team-First Approach
- View teaching and knowledge transfer as core job responsibilities, not optional activities to pursue when convenient
- Lift others up and contribute to collective success—your wins should elevate the entire team's capabilities and the organization's competitive position
- Speak truth to power with supporting data while bringing proposed solutions, not just problems
Pragmatic Problem-Solving
- Make pragmatic decisions in ambiguous situations without requiring perfect information or complete consensus
- Leverage AI effectively in your current role with specific examples of how you've used these technologies to improve productivity, solution quality, or outcomes
- Balance short-term tactical needs with long-term strategic considerations, understanding when to optimize for learning versus immediate revenue
Open Source Ecosystem Expertise
WordPress and WooCommerce Mastery
- Deep, hands-on knowledge of WordPress and WooCommerce including extensions, plugins, themes, integration patterns, scalability considerations, and caching strategies
- Actual building experience—you've written custom functionality, integrated third-party services, debugged plugin conflicts, and built working prototypes, not just configured existing solutions
- Understanding of WordPress development practices including hooks, filters, action sequences, template hierarchies, and performance optimization techniques
Partner Landscape Fluency
- Comprehensive knowledge of the e-commerce partner ecosystem spanning payment processors, shipping providers, tax calculation services, marketing automation platforms, point-of-sale systems, inventory management, and ERP/CRM integrations
- Ability to match merchant requirements with appropriate partner solutions, understanding capabilities, limitations, pricing models, and integration complexity
- Relationships or familiarity with key strategic partners that accelerate deal cycles and improve solution quality
Integration Architecture
- Expertise blending plugins, partner APIs, custom development, and hosted services into coherent, maintainable solutions that perform reliably at scale
- Understanding of when integration complexity justifies value versus when simpler approaches better serve merchant needs
- Knowledge of integration debugging—ability to trace issues across plugins, themes, APIs, and hosting environments to identify root causes
Open Source Philosophy
- Deep understanding of why merchants choose open platforms over proprietary alternatives—economics of extensibility, data ownership, flexibility versus ease trade-offs, vendor lock-in risks
- Ability to articulate open source advantages in business terms that resonate with CFOs, CTOs, and CEOs evaluating long-term strategic platform decisions
- Genuine belief in open source principles that comes through in conversations with merchants evaluating their options
Technical Foundation
Sales Engineering Experience
- 5-7+ years in Solutions Engineering, Sales Engineering, or quota-carrying technical sales roles, preferably within e-commerce, CMS, open source, SaaS, or platform businesses
- Proven track record of meeting or exceeding quota through solution-oriented selling, demonstrating ability to translate technical capabilities into revenue outcomes
- Experience navigating complex B2B sales processes including multi-stakeholder decision-making, procurement, legal review, and security assessments
Hands-On Development Capabilities
- Practical WordPress/WooCommerce development experience—you've built plugins, written hooks and filters, debugged integrations, and prototyped custom solutions
- PHP fluency enabling you to read, write, and debug code, jump into codebases to solve problems, or build quick proof-of-concept implementations
- Comfort with development tools, version control, local development environments, and basic DevOps concepts
E-Commerce Platform Expertise
- Deep understanding of merchant operations including checkout flows, payment processing, order management, inventory systems, fulfillment workflows, and customer lifecycle
- Knowledge of e-commerce-specific technical requirements including payment authorization and settlement, chargeback handling, tax calculation, shipping rate calculation, and abandoned cart recovery
- Familiarity with how merchants evaluate platforms based on GMV capacity, transaction costs, customization requirements, and operational complexity
Technical Architecture Knowledge
- Understanding of REST APIs, webhooks, SSO implementations, caching strategies, CDN configuration, and payment processing technical architecture
- Knowledge of hosting considerations for e-commerce including performance requirements, security standards, backup strategies, and scaling approaches
- Awareness of data privacy and security requirements including PCI DSS compliance, GDPR considerations, and secure data handling practices
Integration Debugging Skills
- Ability to systematically trace issues across complex stacks involving multiple plugins, themes, APIs, hosting configurations, and third-party services
- Diagnostic problem-solving that identifies whether issues stem from code conflicts, configuration errors, API limitations, or environmental factors
- Comfort reading logs, using debugging tools, and collaborating with technical support teams to resolve implementation challenges
Commercial Excellence and Demo Mastery
Proven Deal Closing
- Track record as a deal closer who has owned revenue targets and consistently delivered against quotas
- Experience with solutions selling including ROI modeling, TCO analysis, multi-threading across organizations, and navigating through procurement, legal, and security reviews
- Ability to orchestrate complex buying processes involving multiple products, partners, and stakeholders
Creative Demonstration
- Skill crafting demo experiences that shift decisions rather than simply clicking through feature lists
- Ability to customize demonstrations on the fly based on emerging merchant questions or newly revealed requirements
- Showmanship without BS—building genuine excitement while never overpromising capabilities or timelines
Competitive Mastery
- Expertise positioning against competitors by surfacing requirements that favor open source, exposing proprietary platform limitations and hidden costs, and demonstrating long-term strategic advantages
- Knowledge of major e-commerce platform competitors including their strengths, weaknesses, pricing structures, and technical limitations
- Ability to turn competitive situations into WooCommerce wins through superior solution design and compelling value articulation
Value Selling and Business Cases
- Capability building comprehensive business cases showing why WooCommerce wins long-term through TCO advantages, data ownership benefits, customization flexibility, and ecosystem richness
- Strong storytelling ability translating technical architecture into business narratives that resonate with executive stakeholders
- Skill demonstrating quick prototypes and working examples that definitively prove "yes, WooCommerce can do that"
Cross-Audience Communication
- Ability to whiteboard technical architectures with CTOs, present business cases to CFOs, demo user experiences to marketing teams, enable partners on solution positioning, and train internal teams
- Comfort shifting communication style, technical depth, and emphasis based on audience needs and sophistication
- Written communication skills for creating proposals, business cases, solution documentation, and enablement materials
Professionals considering technical sales careers in open source e-commerce often research how successful solution engineers develop these diverse skill sets. Understanding career paths and skill development strategies through professional development resources and industry-focused career platforms can provide valuable guidance for both aspiring and experienced technical sellers.
Preferred Additional Qualifications
- E-Commerce Platform Sales Experience: Background selling e-commerce platforms, open source CMS solutions, payments/fintech products, or marketplace technologies
- AI-Driven Commerce Understanding: Familiarity with autonomous agent commerce, personalization APIs, and how AI transforms e-commerce operations
- Compliance Knowledge: Understanding of PCI DSS, SOC 2, SCA/PSD2, multi-region tax requirements, and how compliance affects architecture decisions
- PLG and SLG Experience: Background with product-led growth and sales-led growth coexistence, understanding how these motions complement each other
- Sales Methodology Training: Formal training in frameworks like MEDDPICC, Command of the Message, Challenger Sale, or similar structured selling approaches
- Agency and SI Partner Ecosystem: Experience working with open source agencies, system integrator networks, or partner channels that extend platform capabilities
Success Milestones
90 Days
- Close your first deals demonstrating ability to architect solutions, navigate sales processes, and convert competitive evaluations
- Identify key product gaps, ecosystem weaknesses, and competitive vulnerabilities based on actual merchant conversations
- Establish feedback loops with product, partnerships, and customer success teams ensuring insights flow to appropriate stakeholders
6 Months
- Consistently hit quota demonstrating repeatable success converting midmarket merchants in competitive situations
- Build comprehensive competitive playbook including battle cards, positioning frameworks, common objection handling, and winning solution patterns
- Influence product roadmap through well-documented merchant needs, deal blockers, and ecosystem gaps backed by revenue impact analysis
12 Months
- Exceed team quota establishing yourself as top performer while helping newer team members accelerate their success
- Create playbooks, templates, and enablement materials adopted by new hires as standard onboarding resources
- Set foundation for scale including documented processes, solution patterns, partner relationships, and organizational knowledge that enables team expansion
Career Growth and Development
WooCommerce and Automattic invest significantly in employee development, recognizing that individual growth drives organizational success. As a Merchant Sales & Solution Engineer, you'll have opportunities to advance along multiple paths based on your interests and strengths.
Sales Leadership Paths
High-performing solution engineers can advance into sales leadership roles including team lead, sales manager, and director positions. These opportunities involve hiring, mentoring, quota management, strategic planning, and cross-functional coordination while remaining connected to technical aspects of the business.
Product and Strategy Roles
Your deep merchant knowledge and market insights position you well for transitions into product management, product marketing, or go-to-market strategy roles. Solution engineers who understand customer needs, competitive dynamics, and ecosystem capabilities bring invaluable perspectives to product organizations.
Partnership and Ecosystem Development
Experience architecting solutions involving multiple partners creates pathways into partnership management, ecosystem development, or platform strategy roles focused on expanding and optimizing the partner network.
Technical Architecture and Specialization
Engineers who prefer deepening technical expertise can advance into specialized solution architecture roles, technical pre-sales leadership, or positions focused on specific verticals, use cases, or technical domains.
The company supports professional development through conference attendance, training programs, certification costs, and other learning resources that enhance your capabilities and market value.
Company Culture and Work Environment
Automattic operates as a fully distributed company with over 1,400 employees in nearly every corner of the globe, speaking more than 100 different languages. This diversity enriches the organization while uniting everyone around democratizing publishing, commerce, and messaging.
The company believes in making the web a better place through open source technology that empowers fair competition regardless of income, gender, politics, language, or location. This mission-driven culture attracts professionals who care deeply about technology's role in creating more equitable opportunities.
WooCommerce specifically champions open commerce, ensuring merchants maintain ownership and control of their data, customer relationships, and business destiny rather than becoming dependent on proprietary platforms that extract ever-increasing rents.
The fully remote environment offers genuine flexibility regarding when and where you work, trusting employees to manage their time responsibly while meeting commitments. The open vacation policy reflects similar trust, eliminating arbitrary limits on time off.
Understanding how distributed companies maintain sales culture, enable collaboration across time zones, and support remote sellers represents an important consideration when evaluating opportunities. Many professionals research organizational approaches to remote sales through various business and career resources before making decisions about joining distributed sales teams.
Compensation and Benefits
Base Salary Range: $160,000 - $185,000 USD
Variable Compensation: Additional quota-based incentives
Salary ranges remain consistent globally regardless of location, with payment made in local currency. Automattic seeks high-caliber candidates whose skills create net positive organizational impact. Compensation reflects your potential contribution and impact, which may in some cases extend beyond stated ranges for exceptional candidates.
The company offers straightforward, competitive base salaries plus variable compensation tied to quota achievement, providing financial clarity without complex commission structures. You can learn more about Automattic's approach through their compensation philosophy documentation.
Comprehensive Benefits
Benefits vary by country to optimize for local regulations and norms. Automattic provides detailed country-specific information on their Benefits Page.
Common benefits include:
- Open Vacation Policy: Unlimited time off trusting employees to balance personal and professional needs
- Remote Work Support: Resources for productive home office environments
- Health Coverage: Medical, dental, and vision insurance (varies by location)
- Professional Development: Support for learning, conferences, and skill development
- Flexible Schedule: Autonomy over work timing and location
- Equipment and Technology: Tools necessary for role success
About Automattic
Now in its 20th year, Automattic powers WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, Simplenote, Jetpack, Longreads, Day One, PocketCasts, Beeper, and numerous other platforms serving hundreds of millions of users worldwide.
The company's mission centers on democratizing publishing, commerce, and messaging—ensuring anyone with a story can tell it, anyone with a product can sell it, and everyone can manage communications from unified platforms.
Automattic's designation as a Most Loved Company reflects genuine employee satisfaction and culture prioritizing wellbeing alongside business results. The Disability Confident Committed status demonstrates concrete action toward inclusive hiring practices.
The vast majority of Automattic's work releases under the GPL, reflecting deep commitment to open source principles. The company maintains active Employee Resource Groups driving meaningful change around diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Application Process
Geographic Priority
We're currently prioritizing candidates in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, though exceptional candidates from other locations will be considered.
How to Apply
Submit applications through Automattic's official careers portal. Your application should include:
- Technical Background: Detailed information about your solution engineering experience, quota achievement, WordPress/WooCommerce expertise, and hands-on development capabilities
- Solution Examples: Specific situations where you've architected complex solutions, navigated competitive evaluations, and closed significant deals
- Relevant Achievements: Quantified results demonstrating revenue impact, quota attainment, and business outcomes
Learn more about Automattic's hiring approach and expectations through their dedicated process documentation.
Accessibility and Equal Opportunity
Automattic is committed to accessible hiring processes. If you need disability-related accommodations, a dedicated form is available for requesting support.
All qualified applicants receive consideration without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, or veteran status.
Track your application status through MyGreenhouse. Review the Privacy Policy to understand data handling practices.
Automattic is an Equal Opportunity Employer Join us in democratizing commerce, one merchant at a time. Apply Now Through Automattic's Official Careers Portal
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