Wildabeest
Well-known member
I’m a bit late to this thread, but do have some perspective to share. I started my career many moons ago in engineering - mostly on the software side, but back then there wasn’t such a definite line between those doing chip design and those writing software to drive those chips, so I did a bit of both. For whatever reason, it seemed that I was the one engineer that the sales folks tended to pull into customer meetings, and I found that I really enjoyed the aspect of listening to the customer’s issues and then coming up with innovative solutions. I also really liked field work where you could actually see the results your product produced for the customer and get direct feedback on how to make it better. That led to a transition into managing customer projects and field service, to then moving into a pure sales engineering role for two different software companies. I now run a product division for one of them.
What makes a good sales engineer? First, you have to know your product and be a top notch engineer. That’s table stakes and doesn’t differentiate good SE’s from no-so-good SE’s. What differentiates is communications skills and passion. The first question I ask every candidate for a customer facing position like an SE is “what are you passionate about”. I ask the question not so much to learn what they are passionate about, but to see how they talk about their passion. If they don’t come across as passionate when talking about their own passion, then IMO, they are not good candidates for a sales role. If you can’t demonstrate excitement about your product, then your customer is not going to get excited about it either.
Communication skills is the other big one for me. People tend to think of communication skills as presentation skills. Very different things in my book. The latter is only half of it. Good sales people listen more than they talk, and they ask open ended questions that get the customer talking. My experience is that engineers are problem solvers and have a tendency to want to immediately jump to talking about the solution vs. listening. If you engage the customer and have them come up with the solution (using your product, of course), then they are must more vested in that solution and feel better about it. If it’s “your”, then they don’t have as must trust or confidence in it. My golden rule is that you should be listening 75% of the time, asking questions 15% of the time (which helps with the first item), and providing information 10% of the time.
I agree with many comments above on the pluses and minuses of the job. For me, it’s was a very positive experience that set me on a career course that I would likely have not grown into if I’d stayed focused purely on engineering. They pay (assuming you achieve targets) is typically better on the SE side than engineering, but I would not suggest you should ever make the switch for that reason. If you are not passionate about the job itself, you will not be very successful at it.
As for the comments about natural extrovert, I somewhat agree with that with the caveat that I’m a natural introvert and still made it work. I do a good job of “faking it” when it comes to societal expectations that people should be extroverts vs. introverts. But I do need my “down time” away from people. Which is why I spend so much time in the woods.
I recharge and go back to pretending to be an extrovert.
If you ever want to have a deeper discussion about the career, feel free to PM me.
What makes a good sales engineer? First, you have to know your product and be a top notch engineer. That’s table stakes and doesn’t differentiate good SE’s from no-so-good SE’s. What differentiates is communications skills and passion. The first question I ask every candidate for a customer facing position like an SE is “what are you passionate about”. I ask the question not so much to learn what they are passionate about, but to see how they talk about their passion. If they don’t come across as passionate when talking about their own passion, then IMO, they are not good candidates for a sales role. If you can’t demonstrate excitement about your product, then your customer is not going to get excited about it either.
Communication skills is the other big one for me. People tend to think of communication skills as presentation skills. Very different things in my book. The latter is only half of it. Good sales people listen more than they talk, and they ask open ended questions that get the customer talking. My experience is that engineers are problem solvers and have a tendency to want to immediately jump to talking about the solution vs. listening. If you engage the customer and have them come up with the solution (using your product, of course), then they are must more vested in that solution and feel better about it. If it’s “your”, then they don’t have as must trust or confidence in it. My golden rule is that you should be listening 75% of the time, asking questions 15% of the time (which helps with the first item), and providing information 10% of the time.
I agree with many comments above on the pluses and minuses of the job. For me, it’s was a very positive experience that set me on a career course that I would likely have not grown into if I’d stayed focused purely on engineering. They pay (assuming you achieve targets) is typically better on the SE side than engineering, but I would not suggest you should ever make the switch for that reason. If you are not passionate about the job itself, you will not be very successful at it.
As for the comments about natural extrovert, I somewhat agree with that with the caveat that I’m a natural introvert and still made it work. I do a good job of “faking it” when it comes to societal expectations that people should be extroverts vs. introverts. But I do need my “down time” away from people. Which is why I spend so much time in the woods.
I recharge and go back to pretending to be an extrovert.If you ever want to have a deeper discussion about the career, feel free to PM me.
