The head of sales has been watching you. Every time a large customer has a hard technical question, you are the one who ends up on the thread, and you seem to enjoy it. Now there is an opening on their team for a sales engineer, someone who explains the product to customers and builds demos for their problems. Would you like it?
It can be a very good move. Some of the most effective technical people I know spent years in this kind of role. It is also a different job, and the title can hide how different it is. Find out before you decide.
Start with how you would be measured. In engineering you are judged on what you build. In sales engineering you are often judged, at least partly, on deals that close, and part of your pay may depend on them. Ask what proportion is variable, what the targets look like and what happened to the people in the role last year. A good year can pay very well. A bad one can be stressful in a way engineering rarely is.
Ask about the rhythm of the work. How much travel is there? How many calls a day? Sales follows the customer's calendar and the end of the quarter, not a sprint plan. Some people find that energising. Others find it exhausting within months.
Then think about your technical depth. You will learn a great deal about how customers actually use software, which few engineers ever see. But you may write far less production code. Ask how the people in the role keep their skills current, and whether anyone has moved back into engineering afterwards. If someone has, talk to them.
Be honest with yourself about what you enjoy in those customer threads. Is it solving the problem, or is it the conversation? If it is mostly the puzzle, you might get more of that as a support engineer or in a platform team. If you love seeing someone understand something, this could suit you very well.
Ask whether you could try it before committing. A few weeks joining calls alongside the current sales engineers will tell you more than any job description.
Whichever way you go, you will come out understanding customers better. That is never wasted.
– Asael Shinder
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