But you don't always need to build a network yourself: in my experience, if you're reasonably bright from the technical point of view, you get paired with a sal

But you don't always need to build a network yourself: in my experience, if you're reasonably bright from the technical point of view, you get paired with a sales account manager who will chase the deals for you, so you just show up, take care of the (relative simple) technical bits, and get your commission. He will do everything else.