Head of Field Engineering

About Semgrep

Semgrep, the leader in code security for builders, empowers invention without friction. Teams catch, flag, and fix real issues before they ship, powered by security that learns as they build. Semgrep secures code as it’s written and provides guardrails that pave the road for developers to move fast and stay secure. Built for builders and trusted by security, Semgrep lives where developers work, delivering fixes without breaking flow, and giving security teams visibility, control, and confidence. Semgrep gets smarter as you build, with AI that learns your context to cut false positives and prioritize reachable vulnerabilities, validated by 95% of security reviewers across 6M+ findings. Semgrep makes zero false positives a reality with AppSec teams triaging 80% fewer false positives across Code and Supply Chain, dramatically shrinking the backlog.

Founded in San Francisco and backed by Menlo Ventures, Felicis Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Redpoint Ventures, and Sequoia Capital, Semgrep is recognized by Gartner in Application Security Testing and is trusted by leading organizations, including Vanta, Lyft, and Dropbox. Learn more at semgrep.dev.

About the role

As Head of Field Engineering at Semgrep, you’ll lead our Commercial and Enterprise Solutions Engineering organization during a pivotal stage of growth.

You’ll help define how Semgrep’s global Solutions Engineering function scales. You’ll be responsible for building a consistent operating model, raising the standard of technical sales execution, and ensuring the organization can support increasingly complex customer needs.

You’ll partner closely with Sales leadership to drive revenue, improve technical win rates, scale the team, and deliver consistent execution across high-velocity Commercial deals and complex Enterprise sales cycles.

We’re looking for a builder who can hire exceptional talent, develop future managers, create scalable operating rhythms, and remain close to the business. You should be equally comfortable reviewing the forecast, coaching a technical win strategy, stepping into a critical customer meeting, or representing Solutions Engineering with executive and board-level stakeholders.

You’ll report to the VP of Worldwide Sales and serve as a key member of Semgrep’s global go-to-market leadership team.

Location: Ideal candidates will be based in the San Francisco Bay Area

What you’ll do

Lead and scale the Solutions Engineering organization

• Lead, coach, and develop Semgrep’s global Digital Native and Enterprise Solutions Engineering teams.

• Recruit and retain exceptional SE talent while building a bench of future frontline leaders.

• Partner with Sales leadership to determine coverage, capacity, hiring priorities, and organizational design as the business grows.

• Set clear performance expectations and create a culture of accountability, urgency, technical excellence, and continuous improvement.

• Build the processes, playbooks, and operating rhythms needed to scale without introducing unnecessary bureaucracy.

Own technical sales execution

• Partner with Sales leadership to own technical pipeline health, deal strategy, forecast accuracy, resource allocation, and revenue outcomes.

• Ensure the team delivers effective discovery, demonstrations, POVs, and executive engagement across Commercial and Enterprise opportunities.

• Establish consistent standards for technical qualification and execution while allowing teams to adapt to customer and market needs.

• Maintain a deep understanding of critical deals, including customer requirements, technical risks, competition, stakeholders, and path to close.

• Step directly into strategic opportunities when leadership or technical credibility can materially improve the outcome.

Shape go-to-market and product strategy

• Partner with Product, Engineering, Marketing, Customer Success, and Revenue Operations to improve the customer journey and field execution.

• Translate customer and market feedback into clear insights that influence product strategy, positioning, enablement, and competitive differentiation.

• Represent the Solutions Engineering organization in executive reviews, strategic planning, and leadership meetings.

• Help define how Semgrep scales its technical sales motion across customer segments, use cases, and levels of AppSec maturity.

Build operational excellence

• Establish clear metrics for technical win rates, POV conversion, sales-cycle efficiency, team capacity, performance, and customer impact.

• Create consistent deal-review, coaching, pipeline-inspection, and forecasting cadences.

• Improve onboarding, ramp time, enablement, and career development across a globally distributed team.

• Build an organization that operates with repeatable, predictable excellence rather than relying on individual heroics.

How you operate

• You own the business and understand your pipeline, people, customers, risks, and priorities.

• You demand high performance, hire exceptional talent, and address performance gaps directly and fairly.

• You are a builder who creates structure while preserving speed and adaptability.

• You have strong commercial judgment and understand how technical execution drives revenue.

• You have a bias toward action and make difficult decisions with urgency.

• You stay close to the work and know the critical details of your most important deals.

• You communicate with precision and can operate credibly with technical practitioners, executives, and board-level stakeholders.

• You are hands-on, humble, and hungry.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of experience in Solutions Engineering, Sales Engineering, Solutions Consulting, or a similar technical sales function.

• 5+ years of Solutions Engineering leadership experience, preferably within a high-growth or startup environment.

• Experience leading globally distributed technical sales teams.

• Experience managing teams that support both Commercial and complex Enterprise sales motions.

• Proven success hiring, developing, and retaining high-performing technical sales talent.

• Experience identifying and developing future frontline managers and senior individual contributors.

• Strong sales acumen, including experience with pipeline management, forecasting, account strategy, capacity planning, and revenue accountability.

• Proven success leading complex technical evaluations, POVs, competitive sales cycles, and executive customer engagements.

• Strong background in cybersecurity, application security, DevSecOps, developer tooling, or adjacent technical markets.

• Experience with static analysis, code scanning, software security, or security testing tools is preferred.

• Willingness to travel domestically and internationally up to 25% based on customer, team, and business needs.

Compensation

• The estimated starting annual salary range for this position is $222,000 to $277,000 USD, with estimated uncapped on-target earnings of $317,000 to $396,000 USD.

• Actual compensation will be determined based on factors including job-related skills, experience, qualifications, location, internal equity, and market data. Total compensation may also include equity and benefits. We view equity as a meaningful part of our compensation philosophy and an opportunity for employees to share in the long-term value they help create.

What we offer (FTE only)

Our goal is to competitively and fairly compensate every Semgrep employee with a system that equally rewards those who are vocal and those who are less comfortable making demands during the final steps of the hiring process. To that end, we generate internal compensation bands that are used when discussing and negotiating salaries. We update these based on market data to make sure they’re above the average for comparable roles.

We invest in our employees’ well-being and long-term success through a competitive, market-aligned benefits program that meets or exceeds local market standards across all of the regions in which we hire. Benefits offerings vary by location to reflect local requirements and norms. For more detailed, location-specific information, please visit Semgrep Benefits.

Who we are

We bring together people from a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines—from physics and philosophy to formal methods research and full-fledged corporations. We’re new parents and new grads, dog lovers and dogfooders. We get together often to bike, bake, and meet up in parks. In our interactions, we believe respect and honesty go hand in hand, and prioritize both.

Semgrep is an equal-opportunity employer seeking a diverse range of backgrounds. We value who you are — including your cultural heritage, your socioeconomic status, your age, your race, your gender, your sexual orientation, your disabilities. We value what’s vitally important to you — your family, your religion, your politics. We value what you love in this world — your music, your weekend pursuits. We believe in welcoming varied professional backgrounds, educations, and interests. If you’re exceptional in your role, believe in Semgrep’s mission, and treat Semgrep’s values as your own, you belong here.

Please Note: For US-based roles open to remote work, we are currently able to hire employees in the following states only: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin.