Sales Engineering is the intersection of technology and sales. It's ideal for people like:
- Extroverted engineers
- Sales people who enjoy talking technology
- Not your grandma that doom scrolls on Facebook
In the words of Chris White, the author of The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers
(Sales Engineering) is simply to show them – no, CONVINCE them – that your software, solutions, and company will meet their requirements, solve their problems, and enable them to achieve their desired outcomes.
What do Sales Engineers sell?
Well that depends on the company you're working for and your level of expertise in their product. Knowledgable Sales Engineers (or SEs) can sell products ranging from AI productivity tools, endpoint security solutions to grid-scale power converters. They become subject matter experts (SME) in the product and become the go to resource as a vendor when companies are interested in integrating your product into their systems.
What if I'm an experience software engineer?
There are plenty of SaaS companies interested in your skillsets in application development, security and devops. Software engineers that like to talk can make a lucrative career in Sales Engineering. Companies like Snyk, Crowdstrike and Automattic have dedicated SEs that work with customers in pre-sales (before purchase) and post-sales (after purchase) to ensure the customer journey is successful. As an engineer, if you don't want to go through yet another 2 week product sprint... if you understand software development at the application layer.. if you want to try something new... Sales Engineering might be for you!
Software Engineer to Sales Engineer Journey
Who am I? I'll be the guinea pig for current software engineers interested in seeing how this transition is accomplished. I've dedicated 9 years to multiple SaaS startups (1 unicorn) building features still in production today and earning a title I've always wanted as Senior Ruby on Rails Developer. I'm working full time to transition to the world of tech sales and will document my journey as well as provide value like where to find the best job boards, how to structure your resume and what kind of questions will be asked in SE related interviews.
As of this date, I've landed a six-figure Sales Engineering role for a prominent E-Commerce SaaS company... and rejected it. I'll explain in future posts why you might've rejected it too.
Summary
Sales Engineering is a viable path for software engineers looking to work in more client facing roles. It'll allow you to flex the muscle of selling the value of a product to customers and leverage your existing experience as a software engineer.
I'll add to this by saying I plan to add as much value to your life as I can. I'm currently a Sales Engineering student at PreSales Academy and want to share what I can to help make this transition for you smooth and enjoyable.
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