Sales Engineer or Sales Development from Dev
I’m making the leap from Dev to Sales. I’m not happy in dev doing this for 2 years and love working with customers. My goal is to be a closing role (account executive) but before I get there I am offered: SDR role 75k base, 40k comp plan which 93% of SDRs have hit over the last 2 years, uncapped comissions and 40k in equity. Sales Engineer Role 90k base, no equity, safer in case of recession Which do I take in relation to my end goal? I’m moving from Oregon to SF and I know less than 100k in tech seems absurd but its about the same money I’m earning in Oregon. Appreciate all the advice and feedback!
They’re paying 115K OTE to SDRs? That’s incredible! I’d go for that if they have some sort of commercial AE role as a next step. When I see high OTE like that as an SDR that is usually telling of a nonexistent career path
To think of an AE as a “closing role” is not a correct view of Enterprise sales. I highly suggest your start to rub elbows with some Sales Engineers. In practice software developers don’t make great SEs. Certainly some do. You want to make sure you thoroughly enjoy Sales and the technology will just happen because we like it. If you don’t love sales and people then you will be unhappy as a SE. The wrong type of person is a “technical” person who just thinks it is more money. I will leave the low TC combined with the most expensive city in America to someone else.