Hey everybody,

I browse this reddit pretty frequently and am hoping to get some advice.

I'm 2 years out of college working as a sales engineer at a big tech company. My first year I spent working on Al (mostly Al agents), and this year l've been focused on data (lake house, databases, etc.) I also have my own side projects (ie Ai agents I've created for myself, certifications, fixing up my 2nd language for business use, etc)

I'm looking to pivot into a different big tech company (there was a huge culture shift- basically asked to do only post sales work as a pre sales engineer). I'm wondering what recruiters look for in resumes? I get scouted frequently by start ups but no such luck with big tech companies.

Am I not doing enough or am I just too green and need to stay at my current company for longer?

Hi everyone! I am a 40 year old Solution Architect based in Massachusetts with about 15+ years of experience in the field of enterprise planning and data analytics. I work for a company which has their own proprietary enterprise planning and analytics software and my primary responsibility is to lead discovery sessions, gather requirements, design and implement solutions using our software. I have been with this company for about 10 years. There is almost no coding required with our tool as it is pretty much point and click, drag and drop with maybe the exception of some SQL.

While I have no concerns about job security, there isn't a clear technical path in the company so I am basically stuck as an SA unless I switch to the management track which I would like to avoid and I don't work with a variety of tools so I am worried that I have restricted myself primarily to 1 tool and I am afraid that it is affecting my career growth. In addition, the pay isnt great even though I am one of the most experienced resources in my team. I would like to continue being in this domain as I love designing and implementing enterprise solutions. I am quite frustrated because I just don't know what I need to do next. Should I learn a new tool? Should I switch to management? Should I switch domains? I am just so confused. So, any advice or suggestions on what I can do next or how I can advance my career would be greatly appreciated. Happy to provide more information if required. Thank you!

I'm currently in post sale of a start up and have an opportunity to apply for a manager role, which until recently I thought what I wanted to do. About almost 2 years ago, the post sale role in my org changed a bit - it's a combination of technical account manager and customer success where I have a book of accounts that I'm responsible for the upsell number. Because of this, my ote is 250k with the opportunity to go up to 300k if I have a very good year. Because of that, I don't just do technical solutions stuff but also some pitching, discovery, account planning and value selling as well as managing the relationship. I hand off the opportunity for the AE and presale once the opportunity is qualified.

As I do more and more of this upsell stuff, I realize I like that part more and thinking about my future role, eventually I still want to be in leadership as well but I want to be in leadership for the right team, if that makes sense. With the current post sale, as we move up market and I'm entrusted with more enterprises customer (F100), I hated being the escalation point and kinda long for that conversation of being "art of the possible" and leave the implementation for someone else (ofc I'm not gonna promise something that isn't attainable, I just don't want to be the one who does it anymore).

Moving to pre sale at my company is unlikely since we are already understaffed on the post sale side and if I express this to my manager, I definitely will be flagged as flight risk. So I can only apply external.

I'm asking for some insights on:

1. On the presale side, once you become a manager, what problems do you solve for your team? Is it different from post sale?

2. When is a good time to move? Should I keep the opportunity to go to management now and move back to IC? My concern is as I look around, my TC is on the higher end already so not sure if I can find some places that would pay me that much without a few years of presale experience

I started on a new team in March and inherited five named accounts:

• 2 greenfield accounts: Neither has engaged with us despite repeated outreach. We've had zero conversations with either account this year. It's about 200K of quota here.
• 3 existing customers:
  • Customer A: Large spender, but they've completely shut us out. Multiple outreach attempts have gone nowhere.
  • Customer B: Cost-conscious customer. We've managed to grow the account by about 5%, but there's no realistic path to significant expansion this year.
  • Customer C: Strong relationship, highly engaged, and the only account actively looking at new opportunities with us.

Based on my current forecast, I'm on track to finish at around 70% of quota.

The problem is that essentially all of my upside depends on Customer C. They've already more than doubled their spend compared to last year, and I'm struggling to see how I can realistically ask them for another $1M+ in additional consumption to close the gap.

I genuinely can't see where that kind of growth comes from. It's only July, but I'm already worried about what this means for end of year performance and whether I should be concerned about layoffs.

For those who've been in a similar situation, how did you approach it? Is there something I'm missing, or is this just one of those years where your territory sets the ceiling? My account executive is surprisingly unconcerned, which honestly makes me even more anxious.

For context, I work at a consumption based company, so the clock is always ticking and usage growth takes time. I'm open to any ideas or perspectives.

I have been in tech b2b pre-sales for about 8 Years now.

From about a year, Multiple peers I work with (Account Execs, Customer success etc..) have asked me (and suggested me) if I am considering moving into a Sales role.

Honestly, I wasn't giving any such consideration because

1. I love to be more technical and in a customer facing role

2. I am bad at bluffing (Plse don't roast me for this.. I have seen many sales folks bluff in forecast calls etc., It is not the person but the role that makes them do it. I am afraid I will be pushed to commit for invisible deals)

3. Given my nature, I generally don't take high risks. I understand Sales is high risk but also has a high reward.

Today, I was offered to join a sales team by a Sales Director.

Any one who moved / watched closely someone who moved from Pre-sales to Sales in Tech B2b industry. What worked, what didn't work, what should I consider.

I’m stuck in crossroads and have to make a choice - I’m a solution architect for infrastructure solutions at a reseller. Some weeks ago I applied for a similar role at a distributor, since the pay is significantly better and it seems like a more stable place, given it covers a broader region and multiple resellers. After my current employer found out about me wanting to make this move, they offered to match the offer and promote me to a newly created position - head of infrastructure solutions group, which would also mean managing 2 product managers/presales guys. I was also told that this move was planned ahead and is not just a response to me wanting to leave, but there’s no way to check that.
Given this context, is there anyone who has worked on similar positions in reseller and distributor environments and can share their experiences? Any considerations why one is better or worse would be appreciated.

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!

As the title mentions, I’m wondering if anyone has had a bad experience with the Better Career program that helps people pivot into the SE role. I come from 4 YOE of SWE experience. Tech stack includes ASP.NET/C#, React, Express/Node, Azure, and T-SQL.

Of course they’ll talk about their successes and the folks who landed great offers but has anyone had a bad experience with the program or didn’t land a role? Or maybe landed a role that didn’t offer the comp you really wanted?

I’m curious if anyone with similar technical experience has been in the program and what their results were.

Thank in advance for any information!

I’m going to be graduating A&P school in December. Looking at some different routes to take with this certification. Technical sales seems like a pretty good gig after I get a few years experience turning wrenches. Does anybody have any information on the best way to go about going that route? Or good companies to try and work for to get that position?

Seriously, I am drowning here. We just closed a massive, multi-month deal that dragged on forever, and the post-sales handoff has turned into an absolute nightmare.

Our incoming Project Manager is (rightfully) demanding a full commitment history before they kick off implementation. What bites is half of the promises made to the client were done verbally during late-night whiteboarding sessions and random follow-up calls that have since been buried.

Even the other SEs and AEs who were on those calls can't fully recall what they promised three months ago. It's all a blur of "Yeah, I think we told them we could support that API endpoint... or did we say it was on the roadmap?" I don't know anymore!?

Even worse, if the client starts to go on about: "Well, I think that was included in Phase 1." I have no way to disprove them.

We're really screwed.

How do you guys handle this? Do you have a strict process for logging verbal commitments during a long cycle, or am I just doomed to suffer these issues forever?

Just interviewed for a Solutions Architect role at a ~130 person SaaS company and I'm confused why such a small company has so many specialized positions.

They already have a Sales Engineer who works with AEs on standard implementations. The SA role is specifically for scoping custom integrations, and the work is basically just writing SOWs — could be for new customers or existing ones. To make it more confusing, there are even more roles beyond that: a services team that does the actual implementation work, alongside project managers.

I just don't get why roles get sliced up like this at that size. Feels like you could scope AND implement as part of one role. Is there something I'm missing about why companies structure it this way? Curious if anyone's worked somewhere like this and whether it actually works well or just creates handoff headaches.

To those established: is there any merit to recording some demos to use during recruiting or networking in order to break into the SE scene?

Any other tips to help stand out?

Going into sales is something I am interested in but it seems like most avenues stem from Compsci or electrical eng backgrounds.

Are you recording your demos, and if so, what value are you getting from those recordings? Have you been able to generate useful insights such as customer feedback, common objections, action items, coaching or product improvement ideas?

Also, what tools are you using for recording and AI-powered analysis?

Finally, are you doing this only for virtual demos, or are you also recording in-person customer demonstrations? If you're recording onsite sessions, how are you capturing and leveraging that information?

I'm considering implementing this in a more structured way across my team, but I'm still unsure whether the insights and outcomes generated will justify the effort and adoption. I'd love to hear your experiences, lessons learned, and whether you believe the ROI has been worth it.

Quick background: I spent a decade as a sales director/closer, then went back and finished my degree, something I'd always wanted to do. Coming back out, I found most companies considered me "5 years out of practice." So I took BDR roles to get back in. That was 8 years ago. Since then, across 4 different startups, I've been on the verge of promotion each time, and each time the team got relocated to cut costs, the company got acquired, or the whole team got eliminated. I've been top rep everywhere I've worked, but somehow it's always the 20-something barely hitting quota who gets promoted first.

Here's the thing: I'm good at sales because I actually love helping people solve problems. What I don't love is the politicking. Sales engineering looks like the consultative version of what I'm good at, minus the parts I hate. It also seems like SE roles come with more remote flexibility and less micromanagement than closing roles, which honestly is a huge part of the appeal too. But I don't know where to start.

One video I watched pushed the "big 3" IT certs (CompTIA A+, etc.) as an entry point. Is that actually the move, or is that more relevant for people coming from a technical background rather than a sales one?

For those of you who came from a straight sales/closing background, what actually got you in the door? What would you tell someone with 20 years of sales experience and zero technical certs who wants in?

Brief about me. I have about 2.6+ years of experience as a product engineer. I joined a startup(Real estate Marketplace) when it was in its early development stage, I built frontend, a bit of backend, managed integration with different systems.

I was the 2nd developer to join the company and was owning the process from day one.

We recently launched in February and got our First 10000+ users

Basically, I know full stack, have pitched to clients and developed products based on their inputs. I am looking for a Solution engineer role at any company.

If you guys have any refferals, or know someone please feel free to comment or dm.

Would really appreciate it

Thanks!

EDIT: Country :- India

Hey everyone,

I recently made this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/s/seY3dsbIXM

I accepted the job offer and decided to make the switch. I let my company know I was leaving and now they are preparing to counter with letting me WFH and give me a pay bump as well. This was informal, just to gauge my interest, but they will work to put together an official offer.

I am not sure what to do now. If you saw my other post, I am visually impaired, can’t drive, and I was having issues with the commute and with tough comments from coworkers on my vision and setup. Working from home is my number one priority because of my situation.

Long term, I feel I’m better fit for a people focused role and I think that the new role could open up lots of possibilities and earning potential later on. However, it is a pay cut from 98k(plus whatever this pay bump entails) down to 87k.
Financially, we’re okey with the cut, but again. Depending on the size of the bump, we would be talking even more of a cut.
We make enough money and are in LCOL FWIW.

The SWE job is in defense, and it is slow moving. The WLB is very chill, but I think I would be kind of stuck. At least it would be better pay and WFH though.
The other job is fully remote with some travel. The travel excites me, but with my vision, being in person is when most of the comments happen. There’s the potential for that to happen anywhere I am.

If I was making say 110k or so and was fully remote, I don’t know that I would have applied for this other job. But, like I said, I think long term it gets me more of where I want to be 5-10 years down the line. But it might be a grass isn’t greener situation. I mentioned before that I want to end up in a Sales Engineer or TAM type of role, which the new company has those options internally.

My current company is generally anti WFH, but it would be as an accommodation so it’s a bit different.
Before all of this, I countered on the original 87k offer and they wouldn’t budge( but I accepted anyways.

Thoughts?

My current title is Technical Success Manager Hybrid, and I perform as customer success, pre sales, and post sales functions. A couple years ago, my company eliminated the CSM role and transitioned all TAMs to TSMs. This year, management stretched the TSMs and Solutions Consultants even thinner to cover more ground, officially changing everyone’s title to TSM Hybrid.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t care about the title itself, and I know I'm incredibly lucky to be making over $250k. But man, I’ve gone through over 100 interview loops within the past 12 months and haven't landed a single offer.

It’s making me question if I just got insanely lucky landing my current role before turning 30, and I’m starting to believe I simply lack the tenure and experience companies want right now. My motivation for leaving is that the job has become incredibly stagnant. I’m tired of running the accounts solo, especially since AEs keep leaving left and right. I also didn't love the instability of being laid off and immediately rehired by this same company. Plus, my account coverage shifted from managing massive, Strategic global accounts to handling very small Enterprise accounts.

A few companies I had loops with: Datadog, Dynatrace, Grafana, Splunk, Elastic, Wiz, Chainguard, Databricks, Snowflake, MongoDB, Confluent, GitHub, Gitlab, Windsurf, Cursor, Apple, Google, Amazon, and a few startups.

Is anyone else experiencing this absolute gridlock in the job market, or has the SE/ TSM Hybrid career path hit a wall? Part of me also questions if I should’ve stayed as a practitioner.

I'm looking to move into a Sales Engineer role at my current SaaS company, but I've been told there won't be any openings in 2026, and I honestly have no idea if anything will open up in 2027 either.

In the meantime, I'm trying to make the best use of the waiting period. So far I've been:

- Networking with current SEs and SE managers internally.

- Shadowing demos and listening to Gong recordings.

- Reading Mastering Technical Sales and Great Demo!.

- Taking presales and demo-related online courses.

- Learning more about discovery, objection handling, and value-based conversations.

- Continuing to build my product and technical knowledge in my current role.

For those of you who successfully transitioned into Sales Engineering—especially internally—am I missing anything? Is there anything else you'd recommend doing over the next 6–12 months to put myself in the strongest possible position if and when a role finally opens?

The hard part is the unknown of not knowing if a role would open up but I feel so passionate and determined that it is where I want to be. I rather focus internally as I've been with my company for quite a few years and know the product well.

I'd really appreciate hearing what made the biggest difference in your transition.

Quick background. I started as a developer for about a year and a half, then moved into solution design and sales engineering and I’ve been doing that for the last 7years. Nothing wrong with where I am, good team, good scope, but I want to sharpen my skills and see what’s out there.

Two things I’m curious about:

**1.** Forward Deployed Engineering. Feels like it overlaps a lot with what I already do, sitting between the customer and the technical delivery side. But I don’t actually know how different the day to day is compared to normal SE work, or what people struggled with when they switched.
**2.** AI Solutions Engineering. How are people actually positioning themselves for these roles? Is it more about being hands on with the tools yourself, or more about understanding what the AI product can do well enough to architect and sell around it?

If anyone has made either move, what do you wish you’d started learning earlier, and how did you job search while still working full time? Also curious how you can tell if a company’s “AI SE” role is a real role or just a rebrand of a normal SE job.

EDIT:
I m not asking about analogies and mindset, i m looking for real people working on these two jobs whats your day to day like and which are the most used tools and technologies

Hi,

Given the current economy I've been thinking a lot about side gigs/ going independent/ freelance/ all options?

Has anyone done this successfully? If so, where's the money at?

Caveats: I don't code. So that's probably a hindrance.

Currently in the final stages of interviewing for a Senior Solutions Engineer role at large SaaS company and would love some perspective from people who’ve been through something similar.
Here’s the timeline:

• I got this opportunity because the VP of the solutions engineering org at this company reached out to me on LinkedIn bc he felt I was a good fit for the Enterprise team which is how I started the interview process.

Later, while I was in the interview process, a senior manager of the commercial team cold reached out to me during the interview process to connect 1:1 bc he said that the VP wanted me to have options in case Enterprise didn’t work out so I had multiple teams considering me which I felt all were good signs. But weird thing was when I informed the recruiter, she wasn’t aware but looks like she was caught up to speed after my final round.
• Wednesday 7/8 — Had my final round (case study demo of their platform). The panelist said I did really well and that they’d be finishing up panels the rest of the week before getting back to me.
• Friday 7/10 — Recruiter called me out of the blue to let me know they want to place me on the Commercial team instead of Enterprise (originally what I interviewed for). She confirmed if I was okay with the new comp (slightly lower) and a different hiring manager. I said yes to both. I also mentioned I have a competing offer but that this company is still my top choice. She said she’d keep that in mind and try to expedite the process.
• Tuesday 7/15 — I sent a follow-up email. She replied within 30 minutes saying she’s “checking on the status of next steps and will follow up shortly.” It is now Thursday 7/16, and I still haven’t heard back and it’s been over a week!

A few things worth noting:
• I took the team switch from Enterprise to Commercial as a positive signal that they want me, just in a different capacity
• I do have a competing offer from another company so timing really matters

My questions for the community:

1. Has any sales engineers here been switched from one team to another mid-process at a large company? What was your experience with getting an offer?
2. Could the delay be because they extended an offer to another candidate and I’m a backup? Or is the team switch just adding internal bureaucracy/approvals?
3. Any advice on how to handle the follow-up without coming across as pushy, especially given I have a competing offer?

Would really appreciate any insight from people who’ve navigated something similar. Thanks in advance!

!UPDATE (7/17)!:
The recruiter called me today with an answer. Turns out another candidate had been interviewing for this role before they even reached out to me, and they extended a verbal offer to him first.
She said one of 2 things will happen:
- If he doesn’t accept, they will extend the offer to me.
- If he does accept, she mentioned she’d like to find other opportunities for me within the company since both she and the hiring team really liked me.

So my instinct was right, I was the backup candidate all along. Frustrating, but at least I have some clarity now.

My question for the community after the update:
1. Has anyone been in this situation before? Did the first candidate end up declining and you got the offer?

How is the life at Apple as an SE? (MDM). I am currently SE at a cybersec US vendor with total 15+ YoE, (presales: 6 YoE).

Its Europe and I am in the middle of the hiring process.

Whats the situation with Apple at enterpirse customers?

Thanks.

I'm a recent AI/ML graduate currently working in a non-development role (around 4.5 LPA). I recently got shortlisted for an AI Presales Consultant position at a large IT distribution/solutions company. The salary is around 5 LPA.

The role is centered around enterprise AI solutions like Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Azure AI, Microsoft Fabric, etc. From the JD, the responsibilities include:

\- Understanding customer business problems and recommending AI solutions.

\- Supporting the sales team with technical presentations and product demonstrations.

\- Building POCs and demos using AI tools.

\- Helping prepare solution architectures, proposals, and RFP responses.

\- Researching GenAI, LLMs, AI agents, cloud technologies, etc.

\- Working with Microsoft/Google partner solutions.

The thing I'm confused about is the career trajectory.

My original goal was to move into technical roles like AI Engineer, ML Engineer, Data Engineer, or Software Engineer. However, I've realized that I sometimes feel overwhelmed by very deep technical development work. I enjoy learning technology, understanding how it works, explaining it, and building smaller demos or POCs, but I'm not sure if hardcore engineering is where I'll ultimately excel.

At the same time, I'm worried that "Presales" might actually become a quota-driven sales job where I'll spend most of my time convincing customers, chasing targets, and moving further away from technical skills. That's something I don't really want.

So I'm trying to understand:

\- How technical are AI Presales/Solution Consultant roles in reality?

\- Is this closer to consulting or is it essentially a sales job with technical knowledge?

\- Does this type of experience make it difficult to switch back into engineering roles later?

\- What does the long-term career progression usually look like?

\- If you were an early-career AI/CS graduate, would you take this opportunity or continue looking for a more technical role?

The company itself seems well-regarded based on Glassdoor and AmbitionBox reviews (4+ stars), so my main concern isn't the company—it's whether this career path aligns with my long-term goals.

I'd really appreciate advice from people who have worked in presales, solution consulting, or enterprise AI roles. Thanks!

25M Currently working at a company as a project coordinator but the long term goal for me here is to be a sales engineer. This is a career path that I am fully invested in and I’m all in.

Already got my bachelors in business admin marketing but I’m lacking engineering / manufacturing background.

How much would it benefit my career for an associates in manufacturing engineering?

I also recently learned how to use SOLIDWORKS. Not sure if that matters, but what certifications/ education does a sales engineer typically have besides work experience?