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> do you work for an enterprise-focused tech company? I work as a sales engineer for Databricks. As a SWE I had built cloud infrastructure like the equivalent

> do you work for an enterprise-focused tech company? I work as a sales engineer for Databricks. As a SWE I had built cloud infrastructure like the equivalent of AWS S3 for the companies I worked for. So the technical nature of the product and customers appealed to me and made my skillset valuable to the role. > how much travel do you do outside the pandemic? I have not had this job outside the pandemic. I'm NYC-based, and my understanding is that I would have traveled by subway to meet clients quite often, but plane travel would have been only a few times a quarter. > What would be the “FAANGs” for a SWE turning into a sales engineer? When figuring out who you want to work for, I would suggest selling a product that you like to customers you would like to work with. If you like the product and the customers the job can be a joy. If not, it can be a slog. You have a huge leg up if you already have experience with the product or came from the industry that will be using the product. Another important thing to look at is the sales culture of the organization. Some organizations have aggressive sales cultures where the "win" is what matters regardless of all else. Other sales organizations are more focused on making their customers successful. As a former SWE, the customer success sales culture appeals far more to me. One thing I really like about working for Databricks is that, while we do make commission, it's a pooled commission. So I get compensated on the performance of the team, not just myself. So it fosters a very collaborative atmosphere. We're always jumping in to help each other out. Individual commissions can make for a cut-throat sales culture. I probably make less money than I would with individual commissions, but I'm much happier. So that's another thing to look at: how people are compensated.

readonthegoapp 5y ago
I've done some sales engineering work -- a day or couple weeks at a time usually -- if someone is out of office, if I might be able to speak to some particulary tech/stack that the prospect had, etc. I got bored pretty quickly, mainly with doing demos. I continue to look at Sales Engineer-type roles because part of me likes the idea of SELLING LIKE A * FIEND, but I can't seem to get past the idea of becoming a 'demo monkey' again. Even if there was plenty of stuff to do that was not demos, a single demo each day felt like, 'Why am I doing this and not the sales rep?' It kind of made me think of the infamous Adam Smith quote -- doing the same one or few tasks over and over would lead you to become "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become." Some stuff was very technically sophisticated/nuanced, but most was not. I wonder if the orgs I worked for had just not optimized things, but I didn't see any obvious flaws in the process. POCs were all well-qualified, etc. Maybe the 'problem' was just that I might really only be needed to answer one or two questions during a sales presentation/demo, but you had to be there for the whole 30/60 minutes, paying attention, doing the demo, etc. If a sales rep was late to a call I'd think, "Well I'm just gonna do the whole call because at least then i won't be just a demo monkey." It just seemed like you had to be ok with saying the same thing over and over, even if you had customized demos/POCs, etc. I think my ideal role would be split between at least 4 functional areas -- e.g. 2 hours of my day to sales, 2 to sales engineer, 2 to devrel, 2 to customer success -- something like that. To OP: I've switched to Project/Product Manager/Owner, and that was great-ish, back to tech support and such, and currently about to start doing a TAM role. One option that never really appealed to me, but which seems to be a viable option if you've got some cash/equity, is doing the whole 'investor' thing. You can start buying/flipping houses, do the Airbnb thing, or find folks to invest with -- e.g. you can put $50k into a real estate/atm/etc-type fund, get ~20% return per year, paid out monthly, 7 year limit, etc. There's also the idea of buying some existing business and running it. Small coffee shop. Small online shop. etc.

readonthegoapp 5y ago

I've done some sales engineering work -- a day or couple weeks at a time usually -- if someone is out of office, if I might be able to speak to some particulary tech/stack that the prospect had, etc. I got bored pretty quickly, mainly with doing demos. I continue to look at Sales Engineer-type roles because part of me likes the idea of SELLING LIKE A * FIEND, but I can't seem to get past the idea of becoming a 'demo monkey' again. Even if there was plenty of stuff to do that was not demos, a single demo each day felt like, 'Why am I doing this and not the sales rep?' It kind of made me think of the infamous Adam Smith quote -- doing the same one or few tasks over and over would lead you to become "as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become." Some stuff was very technically sophisticated/nuanced, but most was not. I wonder if the orgs I worked for had just not optimized things, but I didn't see any obvious flaws in the process. POCs were all well-qualified, etc. Maybe the 'problem' was just that I might really only be needed to answer one or two questions during a sales presentation/demo, but you had to be there for the whole 30/60 minutes, paying attention, doing the demo, etc. If a sales rep was late to a call I'd think, "Well I'm just gonna do the whole call because at least then i won't be just a demo monkey." It just seemed like you had to be ok with saying the same thing over and over, even if you had customized demos/POCs, etc. I think my ideal role would be split between at least 4 functional areas -- e.g. 2 hours of my day to sales, 2 to sales engineer, 2 to devrel, 2 to customer success -- something like that. To OP: I've switched to Project/Product Manager/Owner, and that was great-ish, back to tech support and such, and currently about to start doing a TAM role. One option that never really appealed to me, but which seems to be a viable option if you've got some cash/equity, is doing the whole 'investor' thing. You can start buying/flipping houses, do the Airbnb thing, or find folks to invest with -- e.g. you can put $50k into a real estate/atm/etc-type fund, get ~20% return per year, paid out monthly, 7 year limit, etc. There's also the idea of buying some existing business and running it. Small coffee shop. Small online shop. etc.