Being a sales engineer is usually commissioned and you get to do lots of demonstrations and presentations, working with customers (read: more prospects than pai

Being a sales engineer is usually commissioned and you get to do lots of demonstrations and presentations, working with customers (read: more prospects than paid customers). It is a very useful experience because you get to do part of a sales job (selling, convincing people, handling disagreements, presentations) as an engineer. However a lot depends on the size of the company. If the company is fairly large and established, you will hardly be able to influence product direction. In fact, you will most likely be in the position where you might be able to provide feedback to the product team, but you will almost never have the chance to do any hands on improvement to the product. Obviously that is because you are not part of product development/R&D, but believe me, that feeling sucks if you are a good engineer. If you have never done it before and the opportunity presents itself, jump at it. I learnt tons when I was a sales engineer.