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Nothing is gonna give you good, consistent comp like writing software. I'm sure some sales people do very well but "eat what you kill" also means lean months, a

Nothing is gonna give you good, consistent comp like writing software. I'm sure some sales people do very well but "eat what you kill" also means lean months, and sometimes whether or not deals close is outside of your control. My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast, work from home, and knock out a couple tickets a day. Have lots of flexibility to see your kid and take vacations while they're young. Some places offer 4 day weeks and you still take home 6 figures. Sales Engineering or Customer Success would be an interesting pivot but you usually make less money and have less flexibility than SWEs

pmarreck 2y ago
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 2y ago
  > 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.)
  - nunez 2y ago
    Definitely true, but given that sales folks were always always always on, I'd argue they make less per hour than SEs do.
    - marcus0x62 2y ago
      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 2y ago
        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.
extragood 2y ago
To your last point, that's basically what I did. I get a lot of satisfaction from being the technical consult for customers, working alongside Sales and CS, and still having that link back to engineering. The kicker is that I get paid about the same. The right company will highly value a competent customer-facing engineer.
piloto_ciego 2y ago
Aviation does but the road to it is challenging and you can end up like me where you end up having to do something else if you get sick
talldatethrow 2y ago
Whether deals close or not is always technically outside your control. What's not outside your control is how many deals you currently have working, so that you aren't reliant on one particular deal closing so that you have income in the immediate next few months. Obviously the hard part is what happens when things happen to go your way and 3 deals close at the same time. But if you can figure out how to deal with that, most problems with the ups and downs of sales are taken care of.
itsoktocry 2y ago
>My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast, work from home, and knock out a couple tickets a day. Bingo. We in this field are getting accustomed to extreme compensation. But do you know how many SMBs would love to have a capable "tech person" for $60-80k per year? If you're remote you can probably work half days. This is my plan, after I finish the grind.
- Vegenoid 2y ago
  I think there are actually not that many SMBs that want a tech person who limits their working hours and won't handle problems that come up on evenings, weekends, and holidays. That is, they don't want an IT person who won't return their after-hours emergency call. And SMB owners are not very good at determining what is an IT emergency.
  - willsmith72 2y ago
    Yep. In my experience, SMBs can be a nightmare for an SWE. Multi year long estimations, expectations of perfection and 0 bugs/downtime, lack of understanding of complexity, 0 ownership/empowerment, old tech with 0 tests. Of course ymmv, just my 2c.
swedonym 2y ago
I 100% agree with this. Big tech jobs, or those at medium sized firms, are easy to coast in. I've heard that at some FAANG companies Senior SWE can be viewed as a terminal level and it's totally acceptable to have a flat career trajectory here. Consistent, stable, and reliable salary with an average amount of work sounds good to me, you just need to have a high tolerance for BS.
- level1ten 2y ago
  FAANG does layoffs all the time, even high performers. How is that consistent, stable, or reliable?
- mrbirddev 2y ago
  > high tolerance for BS This is really important. You will spend your whole life aligning stake holders. If you can't stand that and started searching for meaning of life then eventually you end up quitting.
ryandrake 2y ago
I moved over from SWE to Project Management. Yes, I make far, far less money than similarly-leveled SWEs, but I feel like I have more flexibility and I'm not on the treadmill than I was as a perpetual JIRA ticket puncher. It's not for everyone, but if you want a change of pace and would rather not leave tech entirely, there are options.
Sammi 2y ago
> My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast My soul dies when I try this. I can't look in the mirror and like the person looking back. I feel myself rot. I need challenge. I need to be useful. Most dev shops infantalise their devs and don't allow them to do actual useful hard work. So I'm currently attempting a bootstrapped startup. Because I want to work.
- nickd2001 2y ago
  A compromise exists :) - Public sector (e:g govt or academia). Due to lack of a need to show quarterly profits, its less stressful. But its also challenging. You can work hard, with intelligent people, on stuff that matters, but you won't get asked to work the weekend. Flexible family-friendly working can be a thing. Base pay is usually less than private sector. But pension likely to be better. And, getting burned out and/or laid-off is expensive. As is trying to save tons to get out of a hell-hole. Whereas, chugging along doing interesting fulfilling work for years at the same place with people you get along with, seems a good option for me. I recommend this to everyone :)

pmarreck 2y ago

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 2y ago
> 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.)
- nunez 2y ago
  Definitely true, but given that sales folks were always always always on, I'd argue they make less per hour than SEs do.
  - marcus0x62 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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.

extragood 2y ago

To your last point, that's basically what I did. I get a lot of satisfaction from being the technical consult for customers, working alongside Sales and CS, and still having that link back to engineering. The kicker is that I get paid about the same. The right company will highly value a competent customer-facing engineer.

piloto_ciego 2y ago

Aviation does but the road to it is challenging and you can end up like me where you end up having to do something else if you get sick

talldatethrow 2y ago

Whether deals close or not is always technically outside your control. What's not outside your control is how many deals you currently have working, so that you aren't reliant on one particular deal closing so that you have income in the immediate next few months. Obviously the hard part is what happens when things happen to go your way and 3 deals close at the same time. But if you can figure out how to deal with that, most problems with the ups and downs of sales are taken care of.

itsoktocry 2y ago

>My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast, work from home, and knock out a couple tickets a day. Bingo. We in this field are getting accustomed to extreme compensation. But do you know how many SMBs would love to have a capable "tech person" for $60-80k per year? If you're remote you can probably work half days. This is my plan, after I finish the grind.

Vegenoid 2y ago
I think there are actually not that many SMBs that want a tech person who limits their working hours and won't handle problems that come up on evenings, weekends, and holidays. That is, they don't want an IT person who won't return their after-hours emergency call. And SMB owners are not very good at determining what is an IT emergency.
- willsmith72 2y ago
  Yep. In my experience, SMBs can be a nightmare for an SWE. Multi year long estimations, expectations of perfection and 0 bugs/downtime, lack of understanding of complexity, 0 ownership/empowerment, old tech with 0 tests. Of course ymmv, just my 2c.

swedonym 2y ago

I 100% agree with this. Big tech jobs, or those at medium sized firms, are easy to coast in. I've heard that at some FAANG companies Senior SWE can be viewed as a terminal level and it's totally acceptable to have a flat career trajectory here. Consistent, stable, and reliable salary with an average amount of work sounds good to me, you just need to have a high tolerance for BS.

level1ten 2y ago
FAANG does layoffs all the time, even high performers. How is that consistent, stable, or reliable?
mrbirddev 2y ago
> high tolerance for BS This is really important. You will spend your whole life aligning stake holders. If you can't stand that and started searching for meaning of life then eventually you end up quitting.

ryandrake 2y ago

I moved over from SWE to Project Management. Yes, I make far, far less money than similarly-leveled SWEs, but I feel like I have more flexibility and I'm not on the treadmill than I was as a perpetual JIRA ticket puncher. It's not for everyone, but if you want a change of pace and would rather not leave tech entirely, there are options.

Sammi 2y ago

> My advice is to just get a tech job where you can coast My soul dies when I try this. I can't look in the mirror and like the person looking back. I feel myself rot. I need challenge. I need to be useful. Most dev shops infantalise their devs and don't allow them to do actual useful hard work. So I'm currently attempting a bootstrapped startup. Because I want to work.

nickd2001 2y ago
A compromise exists :) - Public sector (e:g govt or academia). Due to lack of a need to show quarterly profits, its less stressful. But its also challenging. You can work hard, with intelligent people, on stuff that matters, but you won't get asked to work the weekend. Flexible family-friendly working can be a thing. Base pay is usually less than private sector. But pension likely to be better. And, getting burned out and/or laid-off is expensive. As is trying to save tons to get out of a hell-hole. Whereas, chugging along doing interesting fulfilling work for years at the same place with people you get along with, seems a good option for me. I recommend this to everyone :)