Idk seems like the sales teams have all the fun. Sure I will no longer build anything but maybe I’ll enjoy life? Has anyone made this switch?
I did. It was fun, but got old quickly and returning to engineering wasnt as easy as I thought it would be (I'm a PM, not a dev). My advice if you pursue it is to have a clear exit strategy just in case you need it and make sure you do not lose your network back in engineering.
Did you go Engineering -> Sales -> PM?
Engineering / PM -> sales -> Engineering / PM
Sales is tough. You have to go out, talk to people, get them to give your their money and also at times take shit from them. You have to be convincing and thick skinned. You have to be a storyteller.
But what about sales at large tech? It’s less used car man, and more ‘do you want this or not?’
It is never that. You have to sell and sign up more clients. Convince them to give up on your competitor or convince to spend engg resources on integration.
I've met engineers that have made the transition but I've never met one that was good. Usually smart people, hitting a solid 65-80% and will never blow it out. Which is the only reason to be in sales.
Could you explain the “hitting a sold 65-80% and will never blow it out” part? What does that mean? Do you mean they’ll never get fired or they’ll never make it big $$?
It means they'll make shit money, because usually you'll look at 50% of your comp being variable. So imagine making 75% of your comp. Usually these people get pip'd and processed out and make shit money in the meantime. Every eng -> sales hire I've ever met doesn't want to do the hard/dirty work it takes to be successful in sales.
Hmm... that’s an unusual transition. You know that sales jobs are commission based, right? So if you don’t sell anything you won’t last long. And it only seems fun on the surface, in reality sales guys are constantly on the phone trying to bs someone into buying their shit while getting ignored by prospect customers all the time.
I respectfully disagree in the sense that they’re trying to get someone to buy their shit. Yes they’re trying to get someone to buy something, but in the sense of large enterprise tech like AWS or Google Cloud that someone isn’t your average joe (usually C Suite) and it’s less flashy, more ‘hey this is what we got, do you want/need it?’
It's not so much this what we have take it or leave it it's much much more consultative than that. Clients look at us as business partners where both our interests align at their business succeeding.
If your whole approach is “this is what we got, do you want it?” You will never hit it out of the park, you’ll be a 60-80% like frenchtots said
Instead of jumping into a pure sales role that is usually commission based like other have pointed out. why not consider a hybrid like a sales engineer or partner engineer.
Sales could only be fun if you are an effective sales person
Unfortunately I don’t know if I am lol