Team Lead, Sales Engineering – GenAI

Overview

Cerence is a global leader in automotive software and AI-powered mobility solutions. We are seeking an experienced and motivated Team Lead, Sales Engineering to lead a team of three professionals focused on delivering innovative Generative AI and automotive solutions.

This position combines technical leadership, customer engagement, and strategic alignment. The ideal candidate is a hands-on leader who can guide both people and projects, driving excellence from pre-sales through delivery while shaping the next generation of in-car experiences.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead and develop a team of Sales Engineers, fostering technical excellence, collaboration, and continuous growth.
• Oversee customer engagements from initial discovery through solution design and delivery, ensuring alignment with business and technical objectives.
• Guide proposals, demonstrations, and proofs of concept (PoCs), ensuring quality, scalability, and alignment with Cerence's GenAI strategy.
• Collaborate cross-functionally with Sales, Product Management, Engineering, and Professional Services to design and deliver tailored GenAI-powered solutions.
• Establish and maintain best practices for solution design, technical documentation, and the application of LLMs, SLMs, and orchestration frameworks.
• Provide strategic input to shape technical roadmaps, optimize delivery processes, and enhance customer experience.
• Represent the Sales Engineering function in internal leadership discussions, ensuring alignment with global goals and market priorities.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor's or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 5+ years of experience in solution engineering, architecture, or technical pre-sales, ideally within AI, automotive, or enterprise software.
• First experience leading or mentoring technical teams in a customer-facing context.
• Strong understanding of Generative AI technologies (LLMs, SLMs, retrieval-augmented generation, orchestration frameworks).
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English; German is a plus.
• Ability to travel as required (approx. 20–30%).

Why Join Cerence?

At Cerence, we are redefining how people interact with their vehicles through cutting-edge AI technologies. As a Team Lead in our Field organization, you will play a key role in shaping both customer success and the future of automotive AI innovation. You will work in a collaborative, international environment with a culture that values technical leadership, creativity, and impact.

Join us to help drive the next generation of AI-powered mobility

Cerence Inc. (Nasdaq: CRNC and ) is the global industry leader in creating unique, moving experiences for the automotive world. Spun out from Nuance in October 2019, Cerence is a new, independent company that has quickly gained traction as a leader in the automotive voice assistant space, working with all of the world's leading automakers – from Ford and Fiat Chrysler to Daimler, Audi and BMW to Geely and SAIC – to transform how a car feels, responds and learns. Its track record is built on more than 20 years of industry experience and leadership and more than 500 million cars on the road today across more than 70 languages.  

As Cerence looks to the future and continues an ambitious growth agenda, we need someone to join the team and help build the future of voice and AI in cars. This is an exciting opportunity to join Cerence's passionate, dedicated, global team and be a part of meaningful innovation in a rapidly growing industry. 

Cerence is firmly committed to Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and to compliance with all federal, state and local laws that prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of age, race, color, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sex, sex stereotyping, pregnancy, national origin, ancestry, religion, physical or mental disability, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, sexual orientation, protected military or veteran status, genetic information and other protected classifications. Cerence Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement.

All prospective and current Employees need to remain vigilant when it comes to executing security policies in the workplace. This includes:

- Following workplace security protocols and training programs to familiarize with the ways to maintain a safe workplace.
- Following security procedures to report any suspicious activity.
- Having respect for corporate security procedures to allow those procedures to be effective.
- Adhering to company's compliance and regulations.
- Encouraging to follow a zero tolerance for workplace violence.

- Basic knowledge of information security and data privacy requirements (e.g., how to protect data & how to be handling this data).

- Demonstrative knowledge of information security through internal training programs.