
Ask HN: What engineer job involves a lot of sales? - leafinthewind
I’m trying to find a programming job where I can also develop some sales skills (ideally enterprise sales). Are there any such jobs out there?
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davismwfl
Yes, usually they are called pre-sales tech, or solutions architect,
integration consultant etc. Solution architect can also be an inside role too
so you have to check how that JD is written.

Usually what you want to do is get in to one of the pre-sales teams so you are
part of the sales process but can still stay technical. This will let you see
the sales process and start developing new skills. This is usually focused on
the enterprise market where the pricing justifies a more expensive sales
process.

You can also do this at a startup but it won't teach you sales typically.
Startups are learning how to sell themselves usually, so they don't have a
mature sales process or people so if you are wanting to develop those skills
go to one of the big consulting firms, or CRM companies etc.

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leafinthewind
True though a lot of those roles would be a large demotion for me

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davismwfl
If you are looking to learn new skills usually the fastest and most successful
way is to make yourself somewhat uncomfortable which helps motivate you (e.g.
take a less senior role, or less money at first). If you want to learn
enterprise sales you need to dedicate real time to that process, it can be a
super intense and sometimes frustrating process which requires time in the
seat, so generally people have to immerse themselves into the process to
really learn it. There are other ways to get some basic sales skills, but you
asked what roles would help you develop the skills and still write code, these
are the best roles for it that I know of which fit your basic criteria.

I am curious why you feel it is a demotion? Money, title, prestige or ? Not
judging, honestly curious.

~~~
leafinthewind
Mostly money - don’t really care about title or prestige

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muzani
A lot of sales engineer jobs pay well... but often in sectors like electrical
engineering or medical.

It's because the skillset is rare; hospitals aren't going to buy some medical
equipment from some sweet talker in a suit. They prefer a nerd who understands
exactly what they're selling and what the advantages and disadvantages are,
maybe even explain training needed. I had one oscilloscope sales job offer,
where the boss insists that the hardest part is understanding the tech, and
the sales part is easy to train.

Many sales roles give commissions, which can come up to a hell lot.

Software probably doesn't involve the dirty details anymore, but I imagine
things like selling a database, AWS-type service, military technology, machine
learning, and so on.

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Jugurtha
Yes, become a co-founder or act as one by entirely, completely,
unapologetically owning the product by going way beyond the distance regular
people go: code, architecture, features, marketing, UX, the business side of
things, the pitch, legal, relations with prospects, knowledge management,
documentation, building tooling for colleagues, building deployment pipelines,
making it easier for co-workers to do their work, disseminating knowledge,
living good engineering practices, enabling colleagues in areas where you're
better, simplifying onboarding, training documents, sales copy, story of the
product, _everything_ and I mean _everything_ down to the minute details legal
documents have or the phrasing of responses to non-pursuit towards job
applications. Own everything.

As far as I can tell, many things are limited only by the amount of complexity
people are willing to handle and the workload they can support. If you're okay
pulling a work-day with co-workers and then another one when they leave, then
we understand each other. Some people can pull off 16 hour work days or more,
even during the week-ends, even during holidays and think about the product
_all the time_. Some are great and can do that in 4 hours, I personally can't.

Find things that suck, fix them, institutionalize that knowledge, document
everything, prepare for the eventuality of your disappearing, build an
organization, train people to think like that, read a whole lot, become good a
things, add a lot of value, become someone you would fear if they were a
competitor, have very high expectations of yourself and be afraid to
disappoint yourself tomorrow, experiment, demonstrate by building things and
implementing things, not just as "ideas" but actual outputs, either
codes/graphics/copy/documentation/training manuals/videos. Go for it.

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gshdg
Sales Engineer is a very real title and role. Basically, you work with
salespeople to spec out a system and help the customer understand what would
be involved in rollout and how their system would be integrated with yours.
This is most common in enterprise sales.

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burntoutfire
Programming is usually very far from sales, I haven't seen such a position yet
(well unless you're a founder as somebody else mentioned). However, as others
mentioned already, you could be a technical salesperson. It does not involve
programming, but you need to understand the tech well enough to be able to
talk about it with actual developers on the client's side.

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codegeek
Typically, you will look for a "Sales Engineer" role where you are involved in
Sales process discussing detailed technical requirements with the prospects.

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mikkom
Consultancy work, especially if you are at senior/lead/principal level in many
cases involves sales work.

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JSeymourATL
Try Searching: jobs, engineering + enterprise sales + Chicago

*Yes, I looked you up. I'm that good.

Promise not a stalker!

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leafinthewind
What did you look up exactly?

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murillians
I imagine he found your tweet to producthunt on 8/27/18 where you say you're
in Chicago

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generalpass
Founder.

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pkrotich
I was going to say the same thing - Sales Engineer at a B2B startup is
probably the next best thing.

~~~
generalpass
Similarly, I think Customer Success is also sales-related and often requires
developer skills.

