Principal, Value Engineer

About the Role

Digimarc is at a pivotal growth phase, building the trust layer for the modern world. This role offers the opportunity to shape the value engineering function from the ground up, building frameworks, tools, and discipline that define how Digimarc wins. Your work will directly impact our sales motion, ensuring every deal is grounded in a rigorous value standard—triangulating business impact in dollars across the enterprise.

Responsibilities

• Lead value discovery with customers and account teams to understand strategic priorities, economic drivers, and the fully loaded cost of the current state.
• Build credible, customer-specific business cases covering ROI, IRR, NPV, TCO, payback, and cost of inaction, tailored to each customer’s hurdle rates and capital priorities.
• Translate product capabilities into tangible, measurable outcomes with agreed success criteria to eliminate ambiguity between purchase and delivered value.
• Develop and maintain the models and benchmarks behind Digimarc’s deal-review framework (named executive, problem, timeline, dollar impact, triangulation) to empower sellers.
• Engage credibly with customer architects, data leaders, and innovation teams on AI, agentic interactions, and broader technology ecosystems, connecting discussions to customer value.
• Own executive storytelling: ideate, architect narratives, and create strategic pitch decks with Duarte-class precision in structure, story, and design.
• Support priority sales opportunities, ensuring sharp contributions in high-stakes meetings and rigorous follow-through with clear owners and next steps.
• Build repeatable frameworks, benchmarks, value hypotheses, ROI/NPV models, and customer proof points to scale value-based selling across the organization.

Success Metrics

• Drive bookings and ARR through product-market fit proven in the field and deep customer engagement across key verticals.
• Reframe deals from "nice to have" to "must have" by quantifying business impact, ensuring priority in customer budgets.
• Equip the sales team with positioning, value frameworks, and tools, with direct engagement on high-impact opportunities.
• Establish success criteria at the point of sale and demonstrate value post-sale to fuel renewals and expansion.
• Within 6 months: Embed in top strategic opportunities with a live Digimarc value framework and ROI model.
• Within 12 months: Measure value engineering as a driver of win rates, deal sizes, and ARR across strategic pipeline.

Requirements

• 10+ years in Value Engineering, Value Advisory, Business Value Consulting, Management Consulting, Strategy, or similar executive-facing roles supporting complex enterprise technology or SaaS sales.
• Deep industry experience in retail, CPG, supply chain, traceability, product authentication, or fraud and loss prevention, with fluency in economic drivers.
• Advanced financial modeling skills (IRR, NPV, ROI, TCO, payback, cost-benefit analysis) and comfort discussing cost of capital with finance leaders.
• Mastery of the value-selling lifecycle: discovery, value hypothesis development, business case construction, executive alignment, and post-sale value realization.
• Genuine AI fluency—current on the ecosystem, credible with technology leaders, and AI-first in workflows.
• Exceptional communication across all modes, with executive storytelling as a core skill (ideation, narrative architecture, message hierarchy, strategic pitch decks).
• Bias for execution: clear owners, dates, and outcomes for every initiative.
• Executive presence and credibility with C-suite leaders at major global enterprises.
• Willingness and ability to travel up to 40%.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in enterprise technology, SaaS, or consulting with a mature value-selling practice.
• Direct experience advising C-suite leaders at Fortune 500 retailers, CPG companies, or global brands.
• Background in corporate finance, FP&A, or strategy, or an MBA, CFA, or equivalent depth.

Skills & Attributes

We hire against Lencioni’s ideal team player model: humble, hungry, smart.

• Humble: Focus on the deal, not credit; embrace challenges to your models; admit uncertainty and follow through.
• Hungry: Drive execution—turn debate into decisions, meetings into actions, and strategy into finished work.
• Smart: People-smart—read the room (CFO, operator, innovation lead, skeptical architect) and tailor numbers, risks, and stories accordingly.

Benefits

• Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage.
• Retirement savings plan.
• Restricted Stock Units (RSUs).
• Flexible paid time off and holidays.
• Life insurance.
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP).
• Mentorship opportunities.
• Training and development programs.

Pay

$180,000 - $220,000. This range accounts for skill set, experience, training, licensure, certifications, geography, and other business needs. The disclosed range has not been adjusted for geographic differentials.

Culture

Digimarc is a team of problem-solvers united by our potential to address complex challenges. Our core values are:

• Collaborative: Stronger together—embracing diverse perspectives to realize collective potential.
• Curious: Listen and look forward—thinking differently to exceed stakeholder expectations.
• Courageous: Innovate with integrity—challenging norms and doing the right thing, even when difficult, to deliver customer wins.

Join us in transforming how consumer goods are made, bought, sold, and recycled globally.