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> Solution Engineering or Sales Engineer where do people get these terrible job titles from? and don't get me started about "ICs".
I'd say the roles are quite different. You could argue about ICs / SDE / SDMs - but Solution or Sales Engineering require different skill sets. They are more client facing and your KPIs (or OKRs) are more tied to sales, client relationships or contract renewals.
is this sarcasm?
> 1) Would love it if someone can share similar moves - how did you go about it, how has it worked out and tips if any ?
I did this more than 10 years ago after about 6-7 years of hands-on programming work. It's a great move. I'm very introverted and don't enjoy talking to people, but the job was a good fit because I somehow can articulate with customers (I just don't like socializing with them, so a pure sales role was out for me). It's a great opportunity to hone soft skills, and felt like a good point for me to understand the business side of software (e.g. every one talks value proposition, but you don't really need to understand it until you try to sell it).
> 2) How does the levelling work ? If I need to change roles would I have to take a downgrade or a paycut ? About Staff Engineer level now.
I supposed it's based a lot on organization, but I don't think there is a real path to an equivalent to Staff Engineer in technical sales. As an aside: you made Staff Engineer after 10 years? What's next? :)
> 3) Any specific skillsets or certifications I should pick up ? I am pretty sure if given an interview I can take it from there, but seems hard to get into a field without experience at a senior-ish level.
* persuasion skills * demo skills * presentation * domain knowledge * whatever skill it takes to respond to RFPs * negotiation * quick to whip up demos * Learn to say "no, but" or "not yet, but"
Nothing really specific to technical sales actually
Don’t do it right now. Your level will be meaningless. Nobody in sales cares about your experience unless you’re an industry “thought leader” pumping out articles, podcasts and keynotes. More likely than not you’ll start as a regular SE. To get promoted, you’re going to have to sell. You could try with a startup and be sales person #2 after the sales-only-sales-person-without-tech-experience. That’s a good way to lea…
Why do you say it’s globally a famine? Are software sales that bad right now?
Banks in EU are cutting back on purchases, because they're not sure how the recent banking issues will actually hit so they brace for impact just in case.
Small company CTOs tend to do sales engineering and moreover you can apply your existing work experience in managing a technical team and don't need to make a transition. If you can try to discuss equity and/or sales commission as well.
I transitioned into a sales engineering role after 15 years of being a sysadmin/SRE/DevOps consultant.
I really like traveling for work (can't do that as a full time engineer) and focusing on positioning our products into where companies want to go long-term without sacrificing my engineering chops.
> Would love it if someone can share similar moves - how did you go about it, how has it worked out and tips if any ?
It went well. Several folks recommended that I do it after they saw me present a demo on a thing I built. I told an account exec (salesperson) that I was interested, and the rest was history.
As for travel: I travel A TON now! I've even done multiple cities a week; a first for me. This is very industry dependent though, but generally speaking, you'll be traveling way more (AEs travel a lot).
> How does the levelling work ? If I need to change roles would I have to take a downgrade or a paycut ? About Staff Engineer level now.
Depends on the company and where you're currently at comp-wise.
I actually got a comp increase in the move, but I don't make those FAANG uber bucks ($250k SEs, like AEs, are generally paid on salary and commission and don't receive bonuses or equity (if they do, it is usually nominal). However, where an AE might get a 50/50 split, an SE might get 70/30 or 80/20. Also, commission is usually uncapped, and some companies might have accelerators and other incentives in place to help AE/SE pairs exceed their numbers.
This is why some AEs do things like 0/100 salary/commission splt; all it takes is one whale of a deal to make it worth it!
(Also, if your AE is good, they are definitely making more than you, and possibly more than principal engineers at FAANGs. They absorb A TON of risk though.)
> Any specific skillsets or certifications I should pick up ? I am pretty sure if given an interview I can take it from there, but seems hard to get into a field without experience at a senior-ish level.
At the end of the day, you're there to help an AE close deals.
If you're here on HN, I'm going to guess that you're new to sales. If that's the case, you'll definitely need to spend time learning the sales-y part of your job.
This adjustment is challenging. It's weird to not have my technical abilities be the thing my performance is measured against (though you definitely need to have it, and having more of it is an edge, if your sales/soft skills can counterbalance it).
I would start by reading "Mastering Technical Sales" by John Care. It's the quintessential book on being an SE. It teaches you useful concepts, like the art of doing discovery and identifying pains (you'll hear these terms a lot), driving demos (you'll do these a lot), and more.
I would also join the /r/salesengineering sub on Reddit. It's a small community that's really useful and focused.
What worked for me was I had industry-specific non-technical knowledge. I had come from managing an online virtual events software team and took a job at a WebRTC vendor. Since I had been on the CUSTOMER side before with another similar vendor, I knew exactly how their customers felt. Even though I didn't have direct experience selling the same product, the company I now worked at loved that I had experience on the buying side of it.
I recommend looking at some of the vendors you already work with, seeing which one interests you, and applying to work with them or at one of their competitors (e.g. if you work with AWS stuff, apply at AWS, GCP, and Azure). Make sure you LIKE THE PRODUCT and BELIEVE IN IT or else you'll have a tough time. It's unlike a "normal" software engineering job where you can have fun on just the tech and not necessarily care about the product, when you're helping on the sales side and don't believe in what you're helping to sell its WAY TOUGHER. I've "drank the kool-aid" on WebRTC and streaming video and have a lot of conviction when it comes to helping customers switch off from their other vendor to us.
Be picky and patient with interviewing for this. Even more so than a normal engineering role. Don't be afraid to reach out to companies you really dig even if they don't have an open role at the time. In my experience, the interview process for this kind of a role was a lot more "people/personality" heavy rather than just pure tech-heavy because they know they're putting you in front of customers. They don't mind if you don't know everything because you can always ask an engineer on the product team for help, but they do mind if you don't have above-average social skills. My presentation skills are excellent because I've taken some public speaking classes and do stand-up comedy 2-3 times a week for fun, which was also a big help.
OOH! I JUST DID THIS! I transitioned into a sales engineering role after 15 years of being a sysadmin/SRE/DevOps consultant. I really like traveling for work (can't do that as a full time engineer) and focusing on positioning our products into where companies want to go long-term without sacrificing my engineering chops. > Would love it if someone can share similar moves - how did you go about it, how has it worked o…
I'll check out the book and the subreddit.
> This adjustment is challenging. It's weird to not have my technical abilities be the thing my performance is measured against (though you definitely need to have it, and having more of it is an edge, if your sales/soft skills can counterbalance it).
This is actually one of the reasons holding back as I feel like I am giving up a tangiable hard skill I have (tech / being judged on tech) to a more riskier performance barometer. But hey, need to risk it to get the rewards I guess.