
Ask HN: Are there other Sales Engineers on HN? Are you also lost? - heyimanse
Hey HN,<p>I&#x27;m an SE (sales&#x2F;solutions engineer) and have been one for around 4 years now.  If you don&#x27;t know, it is basically a technical sales role, a blend of being personable and knowing enough to code POCs work with APIs etc, but in my case, at least, not a full blown developer.<p>HN content is often pretty dev heavy, for obvious reasons, so I was curious if there are other SEs out there like myself that lurk here constantly?<p>Additionally, I was looking for advice.  I am 30, having a kid soon and totally lost in my career.  Do I move to straight sales?  Do I go like bootcamp route and really sharpen my programming skills?<p>Thanks
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throwaway789465
Hey there! I can sympathize with your situation. I have an engineering degree,
but have taken jobs in software testing/QA and now an application support
role, but definitely lost/confused in my career. I too am debating whether I
should focus on building a portfolio and studying software development or
continue down a less technical route. I have recently not "taken the reigns"
of my career's direction, but I definitely need to soon now in my late 20s. I
know about a lot of different technologies and on a high-level, how they
interact, and what they are used for, but have no concrete experience or a
portfolio of side-projects to showcase any know-how.

People have often mentioned I would make a good sales/solutions engineer,
since I am descent at explaining technical topics to people and have a good
understanding of how different technologies fit into a bigger puzzle, but
after this latest job in support, I have become frustrated dealing with
client's old infrastructure, performing configuration tasks after-hours, and
chasing client's IT staff to return their support inquiries. After this most
recent experience, I am thinking that going down the SE route is less-optimal
than as a dev/engineer for what I value in a job.

At this point, I have been trying to brush up on my skills using
hackerrank.com and attempting to put together a few small projects in hopes of
building a bit of a portfolio on github. I have heard mixed reviews about
bootcamps and am not sure I am ready to spend ~$10k + living expenses while
not working or working part-time, and hence why I am trying to "bootstrap" on
my own for a while. Have you considered doing this?

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kmuffin
If you can program well, go into dev. If you would rather be a seller, I think
you could make a lot more in the long run, and have more valuable life
experience. I am currently trying to become a tech sales engineer right now,
but not even sure if I will like it, so I a feeling lost too. All I know is I
HATE dev lol

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kmuffin
wow this hit home

