Sales Engineer Apprentice

About the role

Sales Engineer Apprentice for the R&D Center in Bavans, located near Belfort and Switzerland. The center focuses on hydrogen storage systems and has around 1,000 collaborators.

In this role you will develop core sales and commercial skills while supporting customers across programs, serial life, and new business. Under the guidance of experienced Sales Engineers and the Sales Manager, you will contribute to customer intimacy, offer preparation, commercial administration, and cross‑functional coordination to secure and grow profitable business.

Key Responsibilities (under supervision)

• Support relationship building with customer stakeholders: prepare visit briefs, attend meetings, capture minutes, and track actions.
• Contribute to the preparation of commercial offers: consolidate technical/commercial inputs, align with costing files, and help formalize quotations and negotiation arguments.
• Assist in monitoring piece price, tooling and D&D impacts; help track Variable Cost Margin (VCM) and prepare productivity proposals.
• Help manage Engineering Change Requests (ECRs): gather data, draft commercial responses, and follow approvals and implementation timing.
• Maintain sales administration hygiene: purchase orders, invoices, terms of payment, and overdues tracking in line with internal guidelines.
• Support program sales activities: contribute to gate reviews, risk/opportunity logs, and cross‑functional alignment across Program, Finance, Engineering, and Supply Chain.
• Prepare customer and internal dashboards: pricing status, open claims, KPIs, and risks; ensure data accuracy in CRM/ERP and shared trackers.
• Participate in competitor and market monitoring for the perimeter and propose insights to the sales team.
• Contribute to spare parts commercial management when applicable (pricing updates, volume follow‑up, obsolescence topics).
• Continuously document lessons learned and standard work to enrich the sales playbook.

Learning Objectives

• Master end‑to‑end offer preparation, from cost inputs to quotation issuance and archiving.
• Understand commercial levers impacting profitability (pricing tactics, productivity roadmaps, indexation).
• Gain fluency in the ECR process and its commercial implications across piece price, tooling, and D&D.
• Build effective customer communication habits and meeting discipline (prep, minutes, follow‑up).
• Develop data‑driven decision making using Excel/BI dashboards and CRM hygiene.

Candidate Profile

• Currently enrolled in a Master’s degree in Business/Commerce (or equivalent); apprenticeship contract required for 24 months.
• Strong interest in B2B sales and the automotive/industrial environment.
• Analytical mindset with solid command of Excel (pivot tables, lookups) and proficiency in PowerPoint; familiarity with Power BI is a plus.
• Comfortable reading technical inputs and translating them into commercial language.
• Excellent communication skills in English; French or other European language is a plus.
• Organized, rigorous, and reliable, with a sense of ownership and curiosity to learn.

Tools & Systems

• Microsoft 365 (Excel, PowerPoint, Word, Teams)
• CRM/ERP (e.g., SAP, Salesforce or equivalent) – training provided
• Internal quotation and costing tools – training provided

Key Success Indicators (illustrative)

• On‑time and right‑first‑time support to quotation submissions.
• Accuracy and freshness of sales trackers/CRM data.
• Timely closure of action items from customer and internal meetings.
• Quality of ECR commercial files and coordination with stakeholders.

Practical Information

• Apprenticeship rhythm: to be defined with school/company agreement.
• Start date: TBD.
• Travel: occasional visits to customer sites and internal plants may be required.