Thinking about Sales / Sales Engineering

TheNewITGuy

Quick run down, been in IT since 2005 mostly as a technician and moved up to network/systems engineer but I've hit a cap on salary. I'm not able to find the jobs that are paying the bigger bucks - I do mean FIND not LAND. In my current role I was brought in to handle business development/engineering tasks for an upcoming MSP, well the MSP side has flopped and I'm being reallocated as a "Sales Engineer" which basically means I'll do Demos, Installs, and Overall customer interaction with regard to the products we sell. Here is the kicker.... ready??

The products aren't main stream - no Cisco, Microsoft, VMWare etc.. We offer product lines like Sophos and Cybernetics and things like that, so I have a bit of product training etc to do. I'm also looking at the sales training as well so I can familiarize myself with other offerings except just technical knowledge. I'm also responsible for internal IT as well and what's left of our MSP offering .. 8 customers roughly

My question is this.. Should I jump ship and go do what I know? or should I take this opportunity and run with it? I'm actually being paid pretty low for this spot.. $55K so I'm a bit pissed about that.

What do you guys think?

Polynomial

I work with a ton of sales engineers. Salesforce actually pays out commission (which actually isn't the case everywhere) and they kill it. There's been $1 million commission checks and higher written out.

Not so sure how I feel about your position though. Those products are going to be harder to sell.

TheNewITGuy

The company I work for is around 8M a year I think, super small.. family owned .. Our product line is definitely not awesome lol

We tend to sell lower tiered products, probably because of partner requirements + margins


Sales Pays sure.. I think more so than tech just cuz of the value and income generation

Polynomial

I say roll with it for the moment and keep an eye out for other opportunities.

N2IT

Grade (consulting) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Design a resume that captures system, design, integration, sales, top line items, etc.

NightShade03

Run with it for the moment. Even if you don't do well the first year, you'll make a ton of contacts and gain some experience. The sales / sales engineer world in pretty small and reps / engineers cycle through companies every 2 - 3 years. After a year (even selling smaller vendor products) you should have enough contacts and experience to leverage jumping to a vendor or another VAR with almost double the pay.

Source: Was an SE for 3 years at one of the largest VARs in the country.

pinkydapimp

Go with it. I made the switch to sales engineering (was doing post sales and a little pre sales for 8 years previously) about 2 years ago and love it. Its still very technical. You get exposure to many different environments which is valuable knowledge. You often become the subject matter expert and customers will ask you for advice on best practices. This can come in handy later in your career. You also get to meet many different people and new connections. Also the pay is really good. here in the NYC area you can find sales engineering roles that pay well into the six figures depending on your skillset. Its very hard to find people with the technical background and sales skills which is why it pays very well. So take full advantage of that opportunity. I think its a great career path.

N2IT

Agreed unless you hated the customer interaction etc it would be foolish to veer away from this career path. It pays well!