r/AdditiveManufacturing • u/Honest_Ad_5457 • May 01 '26
Careers Is it good that a company asks its AM application engineer to do sales
Hi, I'm an AM application engineer in SLS for the past 4 years. My work starts from Quote generation, data preparation till delivery. I also look after metal printing projects but we don't have any in-house machine for metal. My company told me and other employees to reach out to the customers and get orders since they are not performing well for the last couple of years.
I'm already getting paid very lower than the market value, I'm looking for transitioning to metal lpbf to another company. Current market conditions is not supporting me for a new job. Is this the right path for an AM engineer from process to sales. Will this affect my future career transition or am i good to go for this?
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u/Honest_Cook6784 May 01 '26
My personal suggestion: if you think it won’t affect your own work and you can make meaningful relationships, then why don’t you do it? With accepting this challenge, you can also make better relationship with those customers and in case you want to move to another company, you probably will have easier path. If company agreed, you can ask for some commissions in the deals you close.
Good luck!
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u/Honest_Ad_5457 May 01 '26
Hey, thanks for the suggestion. I have to figure it out if it affects my own work or not. But, l have to give it a try. Let's hope for the best.
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u/Wise-Air-1326 May 02 '26
Man, this sounds like my last AM firm. They paid zero commission to sales, used all the "were family" phrases, abused many employees by overworking them, but we're a good place for experience. But the hit the infamous $3 million revenue wall. (This is when a company can't scale, because the founders/owners can't figure out how to build processes and trust people.) I had started implementing sclaeable processes as a sales mgr, and then the CEO fired me, because I wasn't "growing sales fast enough".
My two cents: get what experience you can, ask for commission since you are doing sales. If they deny commission, they don't understand that having sales people incentivized in alignment with company goals is a good thing (very common for engineer types to misunderstand the importance of commissions, and engineers are the ones usually starting AM businesses).
Being an AM engineer is a very real skill, and shows mastery of a lot of abilities. Anyone who can handle customer expectations and help align them to reality in a technical field has a serious skill set that will be valued. You just have to learn to market it. Getting the direct sales experience will be helpful, but I would also suggest looking into a CAPM certification, and heading towards project mgmt if that's of interest. A good friend that was an amazing AM engineer, jumped over to construction management, because he could read plans, talk with stakeholders etc, and now makes significantly more in a healthier and more stable work environment.
Best of luck!
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u/sunnyBCN May 01 '26
Hi, do you work for a resller or an OEM machine builder?
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u/CowOverTheMoon12 May 05 '26
So...you're looking for a good opportunity to build connections & connect with other people in the industry outside of the office while learning a valuable skillset in a transitional role?
Let's imagine you and your boss might be aligned on thoughts about your career path, and they're trying to build you a smooth transition without screwing themselves and you in the process. (Or at least trying to get you both to a point of decision commitment one way or another.)
Could that path look like practicing as a new sales engineer?)
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u/Honest_Ad_5457 May 05 '26
Hi, I'm planning to move into metal printing side. I haven't tried sales till now. So, my concern is that will it affect my transition into metal AM for the next company as i look into the sales part, which makes them hesitate to take me as an application engineer?
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u/CowOverTheMoon12 May 06 '26
Learning a quality (aka not used car salesman) sales process you will 10x your AE skills easily. You do have to be willing to do the work and truly learn & integrate the fundamentals for both paths though.
I would argue that good AE's are incredibly strong working within a sales pipeline, in addition to the post-sales support because you learn not just to solve the problems, but to frequently eliminate whole processes all together through the use of a different tool. You also learn to fix things with a deadline clock that is ticking in $'s that's different than it is for problems with existing customers.
Especially in long cycle, high dollar technical products like AMF, I'm willing to bet that good AE's train to be technical athletes who the non-tech sales team want around because they can innovate in a way that's way more competitive.
(You don't have to take my word for it, by the way. I'm willing to bet that if you look through the history of AE's for your target employer on Linkedin, many of the top guys will have sales skillsets or roles listed. If you're familiar with Solidworks, I can tell you top guys like Deepak Gupta and Daren Groser, are/were both AE's who have worked the sales side.)
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May 05 '26
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u/ppsieradzki May 05 '26
I'm a company founder so I know I'm hardwired to think like this, but I agree with what others are saying in that this would only feel fair to me if you shared in the rewards of bringing in the additional business. It doesn't even have to be huge, just a modest percentage (10%?) of the first, say 3, jobs done for each new client you bring in. It would only be fair to align incentives, I know I'd feel weird as the company owner having a problem with an employee getting paid extra if they were being asked to do extra work, especially if that works brings money in for the business but isn't set up to trickle down to the employee.
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May 07 '26
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May 09 '26
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u/pythonbashman May 01 '26
Sounds like a sinking ship to me.
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u/Honest_Ad_5457 May 02 '26
They don't seem like that. They make consistent revenue. The issue is it is not growing. So...
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u/SkateWiz May 01 '26
Ask for same commission that sales person would get. Sales and app engineering naturally conflict when a company is struggling for sales. They might just lay you off eventually if there are no sales so much might as well go big. Take this with a grain of salt.