However, I do dread doing the same job for say another 10-20 years. With my interests and skillsets (sourced from others), I feel I'd be better placed in a more people / business oriented role and am planning to transition into a Solution Engineering or Sales Engineer role where I can use both my deep tech knowledge and my sales skills.
1) Would love it if someone can share similar moves - how did you go about it, how has it worked out and tips if any ?
2) How does the levelling work ? If I need to change roles would I have to take a downgrade or a paycut ? About Staff Engineer level now.
3) Any specific skillsets or certifications I should pick up ? I am pretty sure if given an interview I can take it from there, but seems hard to get into a field without experience at a senior-ish level.
I eventually transitioned to an end customer sales engineer role, and found myself demoing a product that was effectively shrink wrapped software, searching for customer fit. In those roles it’s feast or famine, and current economy suggests it’s going to be famine for a few years. I’d recommend against making the transition for a couple years especially in these end customer positions.
I’m now back on the development side of the house, and my view of the product development is forever changed. While I’m looking for innovation to immediately improve customer experience, my colleagues are focused on ivory tower solutions that will make their own lives easier in 2 years. I feel I’m more aligned with what our executives want to achieve for our customers and business.
Although I recommend the experience in your career, don’t do it now unless you bring a unique skillset to the role which is a key differentiator for the product.
A good sales engineer can make a lot of money. Sales is one of the few roles where there is a direct link between compensation and performance. The more you sell, the more you make. Make sure that when you are interviewing for sales positions you discuss their commission structure in depth. Don't work for anyone who isn't willing to pay you a huge amount of money for making a huge number of sales.
What worked for me was I had industry-specific non-technical knowledge. I had come from managing an online virtual events software team and took a job at a WebRTC vendor. Since I had been on the CUSTOMER side before with another similar vendor, I knew exactly how their customers felt. Even though I didn't have direct experience selling the same product, the company I now worked at loved that I had experience on the buying side of it.
I recommend looking at some of the vendors you already work with, seeing which one interests you, and applying to work with them or at one of their competitors (e.g. if you work with AWS stuff, apply at AWS, GCP, and Azure). Make sure you LIKE THE PRODUCT and BELIEVE IN IT or else you'll have a tough time. It's unlike a "normal" software engineering job where you can have fun on just the tech and not necessarily care about the product, when you're helping on the sales side and don't believe in what you're helping to sell its WAY TOUGHER. I've "drank the kool-aid" on WebRTC and streaming video and have a lot of conviction when it comes to helping customers switch off from their other vendor to us.
Be picky and patient with interviewing for this. Even more so than a normal engineering role. Don't be afraid to reach out to companies you really dig even if they don't have an open role at the time. In my experience, the interview process for this kind of a role was a lot more "people/personality" heavy rather than just pure tech-heavy because they know they're putting you in front of customers. They don't mind if you don't know everything because you can always ask an engineer on the product team for help, but they do mind if you don't have above-average social skills. My presentation skills are excellent because I've taken some public speaking classes and do stand-up comedy 2-3 times a week for fun, which was also a big help.
Small company CTOs tend to do sales engineering and moreover you can apply your existing work experience in managing a technical team and don't need to make a transition. If you can try to discuss equity and/or sales commission as well.
> 1) Would love it if someone can share similar moves - how did you go about it, how has it worked out and tips if any ?
I did this more than 10 years ago after about 6-7 years of hands-on programming work. It's a great move. I'm very introverted and don't enjoy talking to people, but the job was a good fit because I somehow can articulate with customers (I just don't like socializing with them, so a pure sales role was out for me). It's a great opportunity to hone soft skills, and felt like a good point for me to understand the business side of software (e.g. every one talks value proposition, but you don't really need to understand it until you try to sell it).
> 2) How does the levelling work ? If I need to change roles would I have to take a downgrade or a paycut ? About Staff Engineer level now.
I supposed it's based a lot on organization, but I don't think there is a real path to an equivalent to Staff Engineer in technical sales. As an aside: you made Staff Engineer after 10 years? What's next? :)
> 3) Any specific skillsets or certifications I should pick up ? I am pretty sure if given an interview I can take it from there, but seems hard to get into a field without experience at a senior-ish level.
* persuasion skills * demo skills * presentation * domain knowledge * whatever skill it takes to respond to RFPs * negotiation * quick to whip up demos * Learn to say "no, but" or "not yet, but"
Nothing really specific to technical sales actually
Your level will be meaningless. Nobody in sales cares about your experience unless you’re an industry “thought leader” pumping out articles, podcasts and keynotes.
More likely than not you’ll start as a regular SE. To get promoted, you’re going to have to sell.
You could try with a startup and be sales person #2 after the sales-only-sales-person-without-tech-experience. That’s a good way to learn the basics, get a title, and then move into an established company who will respect your background more and compensate you as such.
But it’s really, really not a good time to get into this. Anywhere.
It’s usually feast or famine, and it’s globally a famine - those with jobs are usually just getting base right now unless you’re at a lottery winner who’s selling into gov with expansion guaranteed.
where do people get these terrible job titles from? and don't get me started about "ICs".
I transitioned into a sales engineering role after 15 years of being a sysadmin/SRE/DevOps consultant.
I really like traveling for work (can't do that as a full time engineer) and focusing on positioning our products into where companies want to go long-term without sacrificing my engineering chops.
> Would love it if someone can share similar moves - how did you go about it, how has it worked out and tips if any ?
It went well. Several folks recommended that I do it after they saw me present a demo on a thing I built. I told an account exec (salesperson) that I was interested, and the rest was history.
As for travel: I travel A TON now! I've even done multiple cities a week; a first for me. This is very industry dependent though, but generally speaking, you'll be traveling way more (AEs travel a lot).
> How does the levelling work ? If I need to change roles would I have to take a downgrade or a paycut ? About Staff Engineer level now.
Depends on the company and where you're currently at comp-wise.
I actually got a comp increase in the move, but I don't make those FAANG uber bucks ($250k < x < $300k).
SEs, like AEs, are generally paid on salary and commission and don't receive bonuses or equity (if they do, it is usually nominal). However, where an AE might get a 50/50 split, an SE might get 70/30 or 80/20. Also, commission is usually uncapped, and some companies might have accelerators and other incentives in place to help AE/SE pairs exceed their numbers.
This is why some AEs do things like 0/100 salary/commission splt; all it takes is one whale of a deal to make it worth it!
(Also, if your AE is good, they are definitely making more than you, and possibly more than principal engineers at FAANGs. They absorb A TON of risk though.)
> Any specific skillsets or certifications I should pick up ? I am pretty sure if given an interview I can take it from there, but seems hard to get into a field without experience at a senior-ish level.
At the end of the day, you're there to help an AE close deals.
If you're here on HN, I'm going to guess that you're new to sales. If that's the case, you'll definitely need to spend time learning the sales-y part of your job.
This adjustment is challenging. It's weird to not have my technical abilities be the thing my performance is measured against (though you definitely need to have it, and having more of it is an edge, if your sales/soft skills can counterbalance it).
I would start by reading "Mastering Technical Sales" by John Care. It's the quintessential book on being an SE. It teaches you useful concepts, like the art of doing discovery and identifying pains (you'll hear these terms a lot), driving demos (you'll do these a lot), and more.
I would also join the /r/salesengineering sub on Reddit. It's a small community that's really useful and focused.