Sales Engineer at Harness - $290K OTE DevOps Career in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
This Sales Engineer role at Harness sits at a compelling intersection of technical depth and revenue impact, making it an excellent career accelerator for DevOps professionals who want to move into a high-earning customer-facing track.
Compensation: The $220K–$290K OTE is well above market. Industry benchmarks for Senior Sales Engineers in enterprise SaaS typically range from $180K–$250K OTE, placing this at the top quartile — reflecting Harness's $5.5B valuation and aggressive growth stage.
Skills you'll develop:
- Enterprise sales motion and deal strategy alongside technical credibility
- Deep expertise in CI/CD, DevOps automation, cloud cost optimization, and AI-driven software delivery
- Executive-level communication — presenting to C-suite and VP buyers
- RFI/RFP response writing, a highly transferable enterprise sales skill
Company signals: Harness is a late-stage, high-growth startup (Series D+, $570M raised, $5.5B valuation) — you'll get startup energy with meaningful scale. The "16 startups within a startup" model suggests internal mobility and entrepreneurial culture. Founded by Jyoti Bansal (AppDynamics exit) — a strong pedigree signal.
Green flags: Flexible PTO, quarterly extra days off, equity eligibility, and a well-funded company with clear product-market fit. Watch for: Sales Engineer roles at high-growth companies can involve heavy travel and intense quota cycles — the "short notice travel" requirement is a real lifestyle consideration.
Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform company, led by technologist and entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal (founder of AppDynamics, acquired by Cisco for $3.7B). Harness has raised approximately $570M in funding and is valued at $5.5B, backed by leading investors including Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, Citi Ventures, and more. As AI accelerates code creation, the real bottleneck has shifted to everything after the code – testing, deployments, application security, reliability, compliance, and cost optimization. Harness brings AI and automation to this "outer loop," helping teams ship software faster while maintaining security and governance throughout the entire software delivery lifecycle.
Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the Harness Platform applies deep context and intelligent automation across the software delivery lifecycle with governance and policy-driven controls embedded throughout the platform.
Over the past year, Harness powered over 185M deployments, 82M builds, 18T flag evaluations, 8M security scans, 9.1B optimized tests, 3T protected API calls, and helped manage $2.8B in cloud spend — enabling customers like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels to accelerate releases by up to 75%, reduce cloud costs by up to 60%, and achieve 10x DevOps efficiency.
With a global team across 26 offices and 27 countries, Harness is shaping the future of AI software delivery — and we're looking for exceptional talent to help us move even faster.
Position Summary
The Sales Engineer lives and works at the intersection of sales and engineering. The ideal candidate must be able to articulate technology and product positioning at the executive, business, and technical levels. Sales Engineers are the primary technical support for the sales force and are responsible for actively driving and managing the technology evaluation stage of the sales process. They ensure success with all Harness customers and strategize with their sales counterparts to steer customers toward a commercial relationship.
About The Role
- World-class presentation skills in delivering presentations and demos of our platform
- Able to work with customers directly to debug common errors
- Ability to tie business problems to technical solutions
- Capable of understanding and articulating technology value propositions
- Drive complex technical engagements with customers to prove the value of Harness solutions
About You
- You will be responsible for delivering a great product demonstration which tells a story of how our software provides value to our customers
- You will represent the product to customers and at field events such as conferences, seminars, etc.
- You will remain knowledgeable and up-to-date on changes and developments in our technologies
- You either actively develop software, have a prior background as a developer, or have worked with developers in a DevOps role
- Strong cloud knowledge; you have worked with infrastructure automation such as Terraform
- You are able to respond to functional and technical elements of RFIs/RFPs
- You are able to convey customer requirements to Engineering teams
- You are able to travel throughout a sales territory with minimal restrictions and occasionally on short notice
Location
- This role will be remote, based in the Denver area
What You Will Have At Harness
- Competitive salary
- Comprehensive healthcare benefits
- Flexible Spending Account (FSA)
- Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
- Flexible Time Off and Parental Leave
- Quarterly Harness TGIF-Off / 4 days
- Monthly, quarterly, and annual social and team-building events
- Recharge & Reset Program
- Monthly internet reimbursement
- Commuter benefits
Factors that may be used to determine your actual pay rate include your specific skills, experience, qualifications, location, and comparison to other employees already in this role. In addition to the base salary, certain roles may qualify for a performance-based incentive and/or equity, with eligibility depending on the position. These rewards are based on a combination of company performance and individual achievements.
The OTE Range is $220,000 – $290,000
A valid authorization to work in the U.S. is required.
Harness in the news:
- Accelerating Our Mission to Bring AI to Everything After Code
- Goldman Sachs leads investment in software delivery startup Harness at $5.5 billion valuation
- How Harness runs 16 "startups within a startup" at scale | Jyoti Bansal
- Harness Research Shows AI Visibility Crisis Fueling Security Nightmare
- Harness has been named to the Inc. Power Partner list for software delivery success
All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
At Harness, we care about your privacy and are committed to protecting your personal data. For additional information, visit our privacy portal: https://harness-privacy.relyance.ai/
Note on Fraudulent Recruiting/Offers
We have become aware that there may be fraudulent recruiting attempts being made by people posing as representatives of Harness. These scams may involve fake job postings, unsolicited emails, or messages claiming to be from our recruiters or hiring managers.
Please note, we do not ask for sensitive or financial information via chat, text, or social media, and any email communications will come from the domain @harness.io. Additionally, Harness will never ask for any payment, fee to be paid, or purchases to be made by a job applicant. All applicants are encouraged to apply directly to our open jobs via our website. Interviews are generally conducted via Zoom video conference unless the candidate requests other accommodations.
If you believe that you have been the target of an interview/offer scam by someone posing as a representative of Harness, please do not provide any personal or financial information and contact us immediately at [email protected]. You can also find additional information about this type of scam and report any fraudulent employment offers via the Federal Trade Commission's website, or you can contact your local law enforcement agency.
Frequently Asked Questions
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