How to get into sales/solutions engineering as a new grad?
as title says, seems like these roles are never open for new grads, yet when I go on LinkedIn there are a bunch of people who got this as their first job out of college. what am I missing here? are there any relevant projects or experience you can have to get into one of these roles. also for anyone in these roles currently, what is TC like? thnx for any insight! tc: $0.00 yoe: 0
Are you kidding, sales roles are open all the time at every level.
Not true. Are you even sales?
Yes, I've worked in tech sales groups for several years. The caveat is they fire sellers as fast as they hire them, even the ones that surpass their quota.
AWS has Apprentice Solution Architect roles that are L4, would be a good way into Sales Engineering. You can look at other large shops as well, SalesForce, IBM, CheckPoint etc... Otherwise any client facing role, like post sales professional services, will give you a leg up over people with no client facing experience. I know no one that started out as an SE, generally it is a mid level position at minimum. TC for an experience SE outside he Bay Area should be 170-250 OTE, split between some percentage of base and sales commission (70/30, 80/20 splits are most common). RSUs/Option will come as well but differ widely based on performance. Going over quota gets you accelerators, so some good years years you could be 300+. Tough to see all these dev TCs on here but if you like meeting and talking with people and still staying somewhat technical, there isn’t a better job that SE.
👆this right here is good info. Other options could be to go into the corporate world in infrastructure administration. Make friends with the people you’re buying stuff from over a few years and show you’re not just a nerd knob turner and then get a referral. Or find a value added reseller and work in delivery and prove you can communicate with customers and move into a presale a role. I did a combo of both of these over 12 years before moving into an SE/SA role. Also, don’t expect to make $500k TC in this type of role. You can make good money and live a very good life WLB wise. Being on the sales side has a lot of small perks such as fancy dinners, events with customers, golf etc if that’s your thing.
So where should I apply?
Technology Consulting is one way