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Perhaps a sales engineer? > I am just much more comfortable supporting existing software than building new software. Having technical skills is required, but

Perhaps a sales engineer? > I am just much more comfortable supporting existing software than building new software. Having technical skills is required, but you'd be doing little to no coding or design work. > Being an interface between business and tech. A sales engineer matches this almost by definition. > Just working with people in general! The job is essentially entirely about working with people, both with the customers you're trying to sell to, and with the developers who are actually making the product.

pc86 13d ago
This also has the added benefit of making a lot of money even by engineering standards in the right organization. Looks for large enterprise companies where custom demos and new customer hypercare are standard. I've been on the other side of the table a few times and often pre-sales cycles are months long and contracts start in the $2-4M range. Those are the places where sales engineers will be treated as first-class citizens and not just "hey grab one of the engineers for this sales call."
Neywiny 13d ago
I think I can second this. I was offered an FAE job (essentially the sales engineer of hardware) and they were going to pay me more money to write no code and spend most of my time in the road talking to people about products. But I like writing code. Presumably a great job for somebody who doesn't/can't.
_override 13d ago
This is honestly a career path I’ve never really considered, but after reading about it a little bit the role sounds like it would be right up my alley. I’m going to explore the market for sales engineers here in Sweden and see what kinds of roles are available. Thanks for your comment.
- levi-turner 9d ago
  Background: Support --> Technical Sales The job aspects which you listed are more aligned with support roles rather than technical sales / presales / solution architects. On the technical sales side, there's less time spent exploring / troubleshooting compared to presenting what is already built. Some companies have overlay technical sales teams which act as SMEs for technical sales where there is more time spent exploration and troubleshooting and less time spent doing basic demos. One constraint that you need to be mindful of: salary. Support roles do not pay particularly well if your goal is to live a middle+ class lifestyle. Happy to chat with specifics from my experience if you reach out. I see that you live in Sweden where the upside for technical sales from a salary perspective is lower than in the US.
idbnstra 13d ago
Do you usually need experience in sales to land a sales engineer job?
- gucci-on-fleek 12d ago
  For the most part, probably no, because a sales engineer requires substantial engineering experience, so requiring sales experience on top of that would limit the candidate pool too much. I'm sure that there are higher-level sales engineer roles that require previous sales experience, but the OP's previous engineering experience should be enough to land an entry-level role.

pc86 13d ago

This also has the added benefit of making a lot of money even by engineering standards in the right organization. Looks for large enterprise companies where custom demos and new customer hypercare are standard. I've been on the other side of the table a few times and often pre-sales cycles are months long and contracts start in the $2-4M range. Those are the places where sales engineers will be treated as first-class citizens and not just "hey grab one of the engineers for this sales call."

Neywiny 13d ago

I think I can second this. I was offered an FAE job (essentially the sales engineer of hardware) and they were going to pay me more money to write no code and spend most of my time in the road talking to people about products. But I like writing code. Presumably a great job for somebody who doesn't/can't.

_override 13d ago

This is honestly a career path I’ve never really considered, but after reading about it a little bit the role sounds like it would be right up my alley. I’m going to explore the market for sales engineers here in Sweden and see what kinds of roles are available. Thanks for your comment.

levi-turner 9d ago
Background: Support --> Technical Sales The job aspects which you listed are more aligned with support roles rather than technical sales / presales / solution architects. On the technical sales side, there's less time spent exploring / troubleshooting compared to presenting what is already built. Some companies have overlay technical sales teams which act as SMEs for technical sales where there is more time spent exploration and troubleshooting and less time spent doing basic demos. One constraint that you need to be mindful of: salary. Support roles do not pay particularly well if your goal is to live a middle+ class lifestyle. Happy to chat with specifics from my experience if you reach out. I see that you live in Sweden where the upside for technical sales from a salary perspective is lower than in the US.

idbnstra 13d ago

Do you usually need experience in sales to land a sales engineer job?

gucci-on-fleek 12d ago
For the most part, probably no, because a sales engineer requires substantial engineering experience, so requiring sales experience on top of that would limit the candidate pool too much. I'm sure that there are higher-level sales engineer roles that require previous sales experience, but the OP's previous engineering experience should be enough to land an entry-level role.