Manager, Demo Engineering & Design

Cresta unlocks the true potential of the customer experience, turning every conversation into a competitive advantage. Cresta’s unified AI platform combines conversational AI agents, real-time human agent augmentation, and comprehensive conversation intelligence to drive revenue and efficiency gains across every channel. The world’s leading companies, including United Airlines, Cox Communications, and Marriott, use Cresta to power world-class customer experiences every day.

Born from the Stanford AI Lab, Cresta has raised more than $270 million from the world’s leading investors, including a16z, Greylock, and Sequoia. Cresta’s leadership includes some of the leading minds in AI today. Our CEO, Ping Wu, founded and led Google's Contact Center AI and Vertex AI platforms before joining Cresta to build the future of AI-driven customer experiences.

Over the next few years, AI is going to redefine how people all over the world interact with businesses every day. Come build that future at Cresta.

About the Role

As the Manager, Demo Engineering & Design at Cresta, you will lead a high-impact team responsible for bringing our AI-powered platform to life in pre-sales environments. This includes overseeing the development of scalable demo infrastructure and tooling, building rich out-of-the-box demo environments, and personalizing experiences to showcase the full value of Cresta’s capabilities - across conversation intelligence, real-time coaching, analytics, and AI agents.

This role sits at the intersection of technology, storytelling, and go-to-market strategy. You will manage and grow a team of Demo Engineers within the Solutions Team and partner closely with Solutions Engineering, Conversation Designers, Product, and Engineering to ensure Cresta delivers compelling, technically sound, and differentiated demo experiences.

You’ll be responsible not just for execution, but for defining the vision, standards, and operating model for demo engineering at Cresta - ensuring we scale high-quality, repeatable, and innovative demo experiences across industries and buyer personas.

What You’ll Do

Team Leadership & Strategy

• Build, lead, and develop a high-performing team of Demo Engineers, fostering a culture of ownership, creativity, and technical excellence.
• Define and execute the roadmap for demo engineering, aligning with GTM priorities, product evolution, and key industry verticals.
• Establish best practices, standards, and operating processes for demo environments, POCs, and pilots to ensure scalability and consistency.
• Partner with Solutions Engineering leadership to ensure cohesive, high-quality storytelling across technical demos and conversational experiences.

Demo Platform & Environment Ownership

• Oversee the architecture, scalability, and reliability of demo environments, including virtual agents, agent assist, analytics, and end-to-end workflows.
• Drive the development of reusable, modular demo frameworks that can be rapidly customized for different industries and use cases.
• Ensure demo environments are always production-grade, stable, and ready for customer-facing engagements.

Innovation & Technical Enablement

• Guide the development of integrations, automations, and tooling (e.g., CCaaS/CRM connectors, AI workflows, custom apps) to expand demo capabilities.
• Champion the use of modern AI-native tooling (e.g., LLM workflows, agents, prompt frameworks) to enhance demo realism and impact.
• Partner closely with Product, Engineering, and Enablement teams to rapidly operationalize new feature releases into demo-ready assets, tooling, and environments—ensuring the field can effectively showcase the latest capabilities with clarity and confidence.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering to influence roadmap priorities based on pre-sales learnings and technical gaps.

Cross-Functional Impact

• Partner closely with Solutions Engineering and Sales to support strategic deals, ensuring demos and POCs are tailored, differentiated, and impactful.
• Collaborate with Enablement to equip GTM teams with scalable demo assets, narratives, and technical training.
• Work cross-functionally with Product, Engineering, and Enablement to continuously translate new product innovations into compelling demo scenarios, reusable assets, and technical playbooks for the field.
• Establish feedback loops to capture insights from the field and translate them into improvements in product, demos, and workflows.

Operational Excellence

• Define and track success metrics for demo effectiveness, environment reliability, and team productivity.
• Implement processes for rapid issue triage and resolution to minimize risk in customer-facing moments.
• Drive continuous improvement in demo quality, speed, and scalability across the organization.

What You Bring

• 5–8+ years of experience in engineering, solutions architecture, technical pre-sales, or related roles, with 2+ years in a leadership or management capacity preferred.
• Strong technical foundation, including APIs, integrations, authentication, data systems, and scripting (Python, JavaScript, etc.).
• Proven ability to build and scale technical teams, processes, and systems in fast-paced, high-growth environments.
• Experience owning complex, customer-facing technical initiatives such as demos, POCs, or pilots.
• Excellent cross-functional leadership skills, with the ability to influence across Product, Engineering, and GTM teams.
• Strong strategic thinking combined with a hands-on, execution-oriented mindset.

Bonus Points

• Experience with CCaaS platforms (Twilio, Amazon Connect, Five9, etc.) and CRM systems (Salesforce).
• Familiarity with conversational AI, virtual agents, and contact center workflows.
• Experience partnering closely with conversation design or UX teams to deliver end-to-end customer experiences.
• Experience leveraging modern AI tools (e.g., LLMs, agents, prompt engineering frameworks) in technical workflows.
• Background in high-growth SaaS or enterprise AI companies.

Why This Role Matters

Demo Engineering at Cresta is a strategic differentiator—it’s how we translate cutting-edge AI into tangible customer value. As the manager, you’ll define how we scale that advantage, enabling our teams to tell better stories, win more deals, and shape the future of AI in the contact center.

Compensation at Cresta

$140K - $170K + Variable + Equity (based on experience will vary)

Cresta’s approach to compensation is simple: recognize impact, reward excellence, and invest in our people. We offer competitive, location-based pay that reflects the market and what each individual brings to the table.

The posted base salary range represents what we expect to pay for this role in a given location. Final offers are shaped by factors like experience, skills, education, and geography. In addition to base pay, total compensation includes equity and a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family.

We have noticed a rise in recruiting impersonations across the industry, where scammers attempt to access candidates' personal and financial information through fake interviews and offers. All Cresta recruiting email communications will always come from the @cresta.ai domain. Any outreach claiming to be from Cresta via other sources should be ignored. If you are uncertain whether you have been contacted by an official Cresta employee, reach out to [email protected]