Anyone do Sales/Sales Engineering for a tech company?

DrBr0b0tnik

My background, both practical work experience and education, are in sales. I'm currently pursuing an AAS in CIS concentrating in Network Administration. I am on track to graduate in December, and I plan to have my CCENT by the end of this summer. By the start of next year I hope to finish my CCNA and pursue certs of VM. I was curious on this topic because my wife's uncle informally offered me an opportunity to join his company, specifically in a sales engineering/global trainer type position. (The company itself has been listed by Forbes as one of the fastest growing tech companies, they specialize in WAN optimization.) This type of job would allow me to travel (50-60% of the time) and do what I'm naturally good at, while applying my new found education. I was wondering if anyone had an opinion or maybe someone who has done it or currently does it.

higherho

I've been getting position requests / interviews / offers for Technical Sales (teamed up with an actual sales person and I would be responsible for design questions about the product were selling, aiding their technical teams meeting their needs, etc). Great thing is they would send me to a boot camp for 8 weeks and a mentor for a few months. I've been very tempted but I'm not sure what / if I would like it. I do want to pursue marketing in my grad degree so I do have a side that wants to do the sales / marketing gig. I would like to know if anyone on this forum does such a thing.

burfect

I have been doing sales engineering for a virtualization management company (also named on Forbes fastest growing) for a little while now and it's great. My hours are pretty brutal but the customer facing aspect of everything makes it worth while if you like interacting with people.

I have a CIS degree and was doing some help desk type of role before this, but outside of that I hadn't had any real practical hands on experience in the IT world other than this job. I have basically learned everything on the job and as I go and to be honest I am not sure if I would want to go back to the "in the trenches" IT world after this type of role.

I say go for it. Bumping this old thread to see who else on this board is also in a pre-sales role as I don't see it discussed to much on here.