[pmarreck]

I was considering sales engineering because I get along with both engineers and salespeople and I hear they actually make more money than either, if they're any good, but someone discouraged me, saying that if you crave the creative portion of the SWE job, sales engineering is not going to cut it for you.

I'm still fascinated by the idea for some reason. Closing a big deal (and making that commission on top of a regular base salary) while understanding all the technical sides of a product sounds like a neat way to get that "dopamine hit" wave going. (you know, motivation -> work -> success -> enjoyment of success -> motivation) Building out big software features often seems like yet another lesson about ever-receding goalpost lines.

I will say that a work situation DID show me that I DO need the creative element though- I worked for Deloitte once, building out some enterprisey software for clients for a time and due to business reasons outside my control, they halted all new development on the product and switched to pure support/bugfix mode. My job satisfaction absolutely PLUMMETED.

Another side gig I found fun was... and I don't even know what the name of this job is because I only did it a couple times but it was fun both times... "objective technical performance evaluator". Basically, there are situations out there with nontechnical businesspeople who have hired offshore software engineering labor who end up jerking them around a bit to the point where they suspect they're being jerked around (you can't fool people forever) but they cannot point to anything in particular, so they hire YOU to sit in on calls and call out the BS. I can't tell you how shamefully fun it was to call out other SWE teams on their BS while the businesspeople on whose side you're advocating for are grinning next to you. Essentially, businesspeople hiring offshore SWE teams ALWAYS need an advocate on their side who "talks the talk". It basically works like this- you get github access, you sit in on some calls, you ask some very pointed questions, and then you write up a report about the code, the time things are taking, the designs being proposed or created, etc. With ChatGPT help, writing up such a report would be cake- you could basically just brain-dump a bunch of observed facts into a text file and ask it to create an organized professional report for you- you can even ask it to make it strongly-worded, etc. Easy money, everybody's happy!

[marcus0x62]

> I was considering sales engineering because I get along with both engineers and salespeople and I hear they actually make more money than either, if they're any good

Hi, former Sales Engineer/Manager here. SEs do not make more than their sales counterparts in salary/commission, and usually don’t make more in stock (although they often think they do.)

In my best years, I would make half what my sales peer made. In bad years, I could make more as a percentage, but only because sales people are usually more leveraged (50/50 base/commission vs 70-80% base for an SE.)

[pmarreck]

My research seems to indicate the opposite

Sales engineer average salary: https://builtin.com/salaries/dev-engineer/sales-engineer

Various pure sales salaries (I picked Tech Sales Representative but all of them seem lower except for senior titles like VP Sales): https://builtin.com/salaries/sales/tech-sales-representative

This is for software/technical sales, I believe, and not necessarily industrial technology sales

Perhaps your pure sales peers were just very good, or they undercut you, or you were in an industry that didn't correlate with this... Or my data is wrong, or something else is amiss to explain this /shrug

[marcus0x62]

Your data is wildly wrong for B2B tech sales.

[pmarreck]

I mean... From a single anecdotal data point, you can extrapolate in any direction...

[marcus0x62]

Sure, and without understanding the context of the data you are looking at, you can make all sorts of basic mistakes. Which you have done here. For instance, your "sales person" salary page you linked to is more likely to capture data for Sales Engineers than Account Managers. (Nobody calls their AMs "technical sales representatives.") I'm guessing you also don't understand the typical differences in base / commission ratios for account managers versus SEs - account managers are usually 50:50 while SEs are usually 70 - 80% base pay. That has a dramatic impact on total comp when someone is above 100% of their goal, especially with the impact of accelerators. Did you know sales engineers are frequently "pooled", supporting 2 - 4 account managers, with their commission typically being an average of the AMs they support? That's another thing that can drag SE comp down that basically never happens to AMs. And on and on and on.

But, rather than admitting that you are out of your depth and showing some curiosity, you went with the "I spent five seconds googling this and you're wrong" shtick. Good job, or something.

As for me, I'm not extrapolating from a single data point here. I worked in the industry for 15 years. I was a hiring manager for 5. I spent a lot of time talking to a lot of people about their salary expectations, both at the company I worked for and others.

[pmarreck]

Alright, fair enough. I'm curious about the space, and you've elucidated some things. Sorry for seeming like a know-it-all from a single source.

Is the job "fun"? (For someone's definition of "fun", when it comes to work, of course... A big payday may be "fun", entertaining clients may be "fun")

[nunez]

Definitely true, but given that sales folks were always always always on, I'd argue they make less per hour than SEs do.

[marcus0x62]

Being an SE is the definition of an always-on job. The stress is (or, can be,) different than what an account manager faces, but the same underlying dynamic is the same: you're only ever as good as your last quarter and you can never achieve "enough".

Beyond the mental aspects, SEs are frequently inserted, either officially or unofficially, in all manner of customer support processes like case escalation, managing beta software builds, arbitrating between the customer and professional services engineers, etc.

[nunez]

This is true (from what I've observed; you've been in the game longer than me!), but AEs are literally responsible for bringing in the business [0], whereas SEs are chiefly responsible for the technical win. I think the latter is way easier from how I've seen AEs operate.

You're also right in that we get inserted into these wedge functions, but I haven't seen any of that bleed into my personal life like deals tend to do to AEs.

[0] BDRs are LITERALLY responsible for pipe, so this isn't entirely true. However, many AEs are hired for their Rolodex, so to speak, and when they miss their forecasts, blaming BDR doesn't go very far.

[pmarreck]

> frequently inserted, either officially or unofficially, in all manner of customer support processes like case escalation, managing beta software builds, arbitrating between the customer and professional services engineers, etc.

other than managing beta software builds, a lot of this stuff seems to be less impactful to the bottom line (of the business, and thus potentially to your salary) than just supporting the sales cycle from the technical side would be. I could see that happening though if there simply wasn't a constant stream of SE work to do. But I can't imagine that an hour burned on customer support, instead of an hour spent writing up how well the technical fit is to a particular customer in a big sales proposal, is making that company more money off you (and again, thus potentially impacting your salary ceiling).

[marcus0x62]

Managing beta builds is the least revenue impacting thing from that list.

These tasks impact the company bottom line (and an SEs compensation) in that unhappy customers don't buy product. Leaving your customers to fend for themselves when they ask for help - and they will ask for help - will quickly lead to an SE getting replaced, either due to their company getting kicked out of an account and replaced with a competitor, or the SE kicked out of their company and replaced with a competitor.

The general consensus is that SEs spend, on average, about 20% of their working time on "post-sales" tasks. I'm not aware of any published data in this area, but it tracks with my experience, both as an individual SE and an SE manager for 15 years.

[pmarreck]

That seems fair. Had no idea.

[ethbr1]

> saying that if you crave the creative portion of the SWE job, sales engineering is not going to cut it for you.

To me, this is what separates customer-facing engineering from product engineering: do you enjoy solving people problems in addition to technical ones?

If so, you'll probably enjoy SE & CS.

If not, then stick to product engineering.

Personally, I get a decent kick out of solving problems. Whether that's because I aligned 3 VPs or wrote a technical solution doesn't change the enjoyment.

That said, I definitely wouldn't enjoy solving problems without any technical component.