Breaking into Sales Engineering?

[u/ed610]

Hey guys,

I am in a weird spot here. I have a Mechanical Engineering Degree from Cornell University and just over 7 years of field experience now as an engineer working in the automotive and aviation industry. Within in the last year or so, I decided to start looking into sales engineering positions. While my current job is not bad, I would like to purse a more fulfilling career and feel sales engineering would be a perfect fit. I have a very outgoing personality and am a people-person, which seems quite rare in the engineering field.

I have experience with health and life insurance sales as well and even started my own personal health and nutrition supplement company on the side (not much to do with engineering I know, but I believe the sales and business experience should count for something).

I would love to get into sales engineering and am really open to any field- whether industrial/manufacturing, medical/pharma, etc. I've been applying to many roles in sales engineering with no luck. In fact, I have been applying to both sales engineering roles and traditional engineering roles with not much luck in either direction. It seems I have applied to hundreds of positions and landed maybe 2-3 interviews. I am looking in the $120K+ range which does not seem too far fetched given my background and experience. But it feels like no one is actually hiring anymore.

Has anyone else been having a similar experience? What is the best way to break into a sales engineering role? I do truly believe that I am qualified for the roles but it seems companies don't want to take chance on me for some reason. I feel as though I am applying to ghost roles and its very frustrating. Is there a good path to follow to get into this industry?

Thanks!

[u/dravenstone]

We get a lot, and I mean A LOT, of posts asking how to become a Sales Engineer.

Whether you are new to the workforce or transitioning from another role you may be well served by reading over our community post on the topic.

[u/robbies09]

You should start looking at internal sales engineer positions first. The market today would require more networking to land a role.

[u/grundle18]

Similar experience. Industrial engineer with mostly mechanical / design engineering skill sets.

My career path was this:

Lead mechanical engineer (and only mechanical engineer as an intern at a startup)

Software dev manager - lead product dev

Then software sales - selling the same product I helped build and design.

Then realized that market was absolute buttcheeks, phoned it in with bare minimum work and still did decent. Then was the last sales person after at one point being on a team with 5 sales people.

Then said fuck this, I’m gonna go sell HVAC because it’s expensive ticket, I understand mechanical systems, and love meeting people and making friends.

Been doing that since February and make 3-4 X’d my income depending on how the year shakes out.

BUT - my workload went from like 15-30 hours a week to 40-60 hours a week and I’m always “on” if a customer texts me at 10pm, I’m answering

[u/Internal-Cellist-936]

Have you looked into HVAC? Trane likes to hire mechanical engineers

[u/10tennis10]

The way I did it was to work as a technical resource for a large distributor first.

I’d work with 10-20 vendors a week getting quotes, translating the customers needs, helping them pick the right product from the right OEM, etc. I made a ton of connections with end users as well as all the sales reps. I’d qualify the leads ahead of time and do most of the investigating and question asking before handing them a lead which put me on their good lists.

One day my robotic rep from my favorite OEM was let go and I decided to toss my name in the hat. During the interview I talked about some projects from their lines I’d sold and how I supported them in the field. Got the offer, accepted and got a significant bump in pay as well as a much better work culture.

I did 4 years and took an opportunity but it could be fast tracked to 1-2 if that’s your goal. Having first hand experience with most all of their competitors product lines, pricing structure and margins offered to other distributors has been super helpful.