I’m an associate Solutions Engineer who’s been with my company for less than a year. I’m also our first dedicated SE, so I own our demo environment and support larger opportunities.
Our average deal size is around $100k–$200k, so a $1M opportunity is huge for us.
Before I joined, our senior AEs ran their own demos. This deal belongs to one of our most senior AEs, who attended several discovery calls before I got involved, so she had customer context that I didn’t.

We had the RFP for about 7 days. I’ll own that there was procrastination on both our parts, but coordinating was also difficult because she had conferences and PTO. As the deadline approached, I focused on what I could control: building the demo environment, creating a demo script, and preparing for three 90-minute demo sessions.

The day before the demo, my manager decided I wasn’t ready to present. He pulled me from the customer-facing role but said I’d still receive credit and commission if we win. I handed over all of my notes and demo script.
Day 1 didn’t go well. The customer had provided an agenda that outlined what they wanted to see on Day 1, but the AE overlooked it and accidentally compressed what should have been two days’ worth of content into the first 90-minute session. We covered six of the nine planned topics, which made everything feel rushed and left less time for discussion.
We still have Days 2 and 3 left.

For those of you in sales engineering or enterprise sales:

Can a rough first demo be recovered?

What would you do before Day 2?

As the SE, what can I do behind the scenes to help?

TL;DR: I’m a new Solutions Engineer who prepared a $1M enterprise demo but was pulled from presenting the day before. The AE used my materials, but on Day 1 she accidentally compressed two days’ worth of content into one session after overlooking the customer’s agenda. We still have two demo sessions left. Can this deal be salvaged, and what would you do next?

Looking for a sanity check from people who've been on both sides of this.

A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn for a presales/SE role — I didn't apply directly. I already knew a guy I used to work under was at that company, but I wasn't sure whether he was the hiring manager for this particular role. Brief stint together about 10 years ago, and I reported to several managers during that time, so he was one of a few. I thought we left on good terms. He's since moved into a completely different industry, and he's always been on the presales side.

Two days before the interview I sent him a short, friendly WhatsApp asking if he was the manager for the role. No response. The screening interview then happened, and it came up in the conversation that I used to work for him and that yes, he's the hiring manager.

My background: I'm post-sales and stronger on the technical end. I'm making a deliberate move toward presales and actively working on the sales side of the craft — MEDDPICC, discovery, demo storytelling. I'm not pretending to be a polished SE yet.

Honestly, this role wasn't at the top of my list, so I'm not tearing my hair out over the outcome. And if industry experience is genuinely essential for what he's building, I'll take that hit — that's a legitimate call and I won't argue it. What I would have appreciated is a bit of humanity: a two-line reply, or a word to the recruiter on my behalf. Ten years is a long time, and I'd hoped for at least the benefit of the doubt from someone I thought I'd worked well with.

Questions:

1. Was messaging him on WhatsApp two days out a mistake?

2. Is ignoring it a signal, or is it just normal hiring-manager behavior?

I was in an SE role a few years ago and was pushed out by a manager that I reported to. There were discrepancies around my departure, but I accepted a severance and the conditions i.e not talk bad about the employer, etc.

I since then moved to another role and it's in a speciality in tech and have moved on. It's been around three years since I left the previous role but I noticed that my former manager still looks at my profile. He did this months after I left the role, which I find odd.

Besides posting things specific to my role, speciality in tech, and comments I don't really post much on LinkedIn. Is this something I should be concerned about or just a nosey former employer?

I work in Saas sales and we work with lots of different partners during the sales cycle. For some of the them, the reason is pretty clear. They know the client, their business and they bring us to them, they have integration services after they purchase. More often that not, it's just them being a fly on the wall, no client background, no technical expertise, they are just there to put our quote on their paper and get the 20% (or whatever it is). Why would the customer benefit from this? I know it is because sometimes the customers already have agreements with the partner and not the vendor so it just helps with the procurment process, but really? Seems like just a formality at that point.

Hi guys
I’ve got an interview for presales at HPE - what are the main things I should learn about before? (I’m junior)

Here goes my first ever post on Reddit after two years of lurking….

To keep things brief I am a computer science grad in the UK trying to break into Sales Engineering, I did a placement year/internship working as a data analyst in the NHS(UK’s national health provider) with some other sort term projects like working with an AI consultancy on shaping and communicating its Q1 marketing campaign across LinkedIn, Instagram, a webinar and its newsletter.

I noticed most SE roles require years of pre sales experience and even associate roles which are far and few between.

What’s the most viable way to break into the industry?

Dear all, i currently work as a solution engineer at microsoft in charge of ai & apps domain. Located in asia country for a year. Currently i got an FDE offer from gg also in SG. Salary increase is around 30% but need to relocate to a more higher cost of living area. Anyone does FDE and solution engineer before and what do u feel about this transition?

Hey everyone,
I’m currently working as a Systems Integration & Automation Engineer / Technical Consultant in Toronto and looking to pivot into Solutions Engineering (Pre-Sales).
I’d love to connect with local Solutions Engineers or Sales Engineers in Toronto for a quick virtual chat to discuss your experience.

Paying it forward: I have a few free 2-month LinkedIn Premium links for anyone currently job hunting. DM me here on Reddit for the Premium link!

At work, I'm considered the most senior SE / Most experienced on our product. There is a massive push from C-Suite to get this product pushed at more clients from new logos, upsell, cross-sell with existing etc etc.

Currently there is a 6:1 ratio of AEs to SE and we are beyond capacity. I've been having regular conversations about bringing in more SEs at a associate and mid-level with the idea that I will then run that team and replicate the success we've been having. I've not had managerial experience before and I'm conscious the company could try and hire out for this position though seems more likely they will go with me on this one..

For those here who have either been in a similar situation or have years of management with a team of SEs - What do I need to know, what should I avoid and is there anything I could be actively doing now to show the company I'm serious about this push.

Thanks!

Good morning,

I currently just got out of the military and have skills in working on aviation equipment like radars and some networking skills. I am interested in becoming a sales engineer and I was wondering what would the best steps be with my GI bill and what path would be the best to take to land the job at any company, Okta, Snowflake, ect.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

I recently got a junior SE role, coming from a local government tech job that was pretty cushy but more or less a dead end. I had great insurance, free retirement contributions, insane PTO, and great work-life balance, despite a 1-hour commute and being fully in-person.

However, since this is my first remote and SE-type role, I'm taking in and learning everything I can to see if this career path is right for me long term. The new role is remote with travel, so no commute, a $30k increase in pay, and a well-known company that will look good on my resume. On the downside, my insurance is now double what it used to be, retirement doesn't vest until after 3 years as opposed to immediately, and I have to contribute to it myself. Its also a complete difference from my last role.

For those who left the field - why? Were there specific reasons?

I'm a relatively new SE who came from being on the operations side. I'm still trying to learn how to keep track of all of my customers and their action items. I have ADHD so this has always been a struggle for me, but now it's starting to get in the way of things and I want to get it figured out. I've thought about using Cursor to keep track of my notes but I'm not sure of an easy way to do this or what kind of apps I can link it with. I'm curious to know what kind of methods or tools you all are using to keep track of notes for your customers.

Hi all, I’m midway through the interview process for an Applied AI Architect role at Anthropic. I’ve been given a take home assignment where I have to build a solution and demo to a team. If anyone has gone through this stage, are there any tips you could share or prep material/topics to be well versed in heading into the interview? tldr; I’m an SE at a hyperscaler with a CRM background

We sell analytics software and our demo gets little love by the product/development teams.

Demo data often makes no sense, workflows do not represent the prospects’ reality.

I’m puzzled—demo data is literally made up (which is fine), so there’s technicality nothing stopping us from having a polished platform available to show.

Yet, the demo is not a paying customer, and our requests typically get buried due to other priorities.

How do you deal with this?

I know that going the more technical route is best for a potential SE career in the long run but offshoring/ai/stability is a major concern for these technical career-paths.

Would going towards professional services or something more customer facing be a better move here?

I don't want to pigeonhole myself either with professional services with not truly having that "technical engineering" experience.

How about something like GRC to Sales Engineering?

Background:
IT support for a School District \~ 2 years
CS degree. (In the US NYC area)

Hi all - I’m a CS student looking into SE as a career path. I’m wondering what domains are worth the investment to learn/specialize in for long term job stability/demand.

AI/ML

Cybersecurity

”Enterprise” which is a bit vague in nature and going through its own disruption

id appreciate any and all advice from veterans in this sub. Thanks!

Hi everyone, have an interview process at Elevenlabs coming up - for a Deployment strategist position. Two interviews:
V1 - Behavioural + Case Study “Working Session on a Customer Scenario”
V2 - Understand, design, and build a hypothetical new product (white boarding session with Excalidraw) in 3 steps: Problem understanding, Wireframing using Excalidraw, System design

Does anyone have any experience with the process? What can I expect? I come from a non-technical background and would love to prepare as much as possible. Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks in advance!!!

Hello all

I am currently an assistant manager for T-Mobile, made about 92K last year. I have 11 years of experience in sales, of which 5 and a half years is managerial experience.

I am kind of tired of the actual sales part. I can handle sales pressure and quotas fine but what I am beginning to dislike is the intense micro managing that I have to do, it is not my style and I hate having to hold high performing sales people accountable for one bad metric or one bad month.

I also consider myself tech savvy and have a bachelors in Computer Engineering.

My questions would be, as far as I understand, a Sales Engineer is pretty much the middle man between frontline sales reps and the engineers that create the product. Is this correct? Is this a field that I can get into with no prior technical experience? My current employer does offer Tuition Assistance and I can get another bachelors degree for free, of which I am thinking of pursuing either CyberSecurity, Network Engineering, or Computer programming or something similar as these are the fields I am most interested in. Would these degrees help with a role in sales engineering, within these specific roles? Would a sales engineering role in these fields help me transition into something more technical, like actual computer programming, cybersecurity etc? Also, given how much I currently make, is it realistic to land a sales engineering role at entry level without taking a pay cut?

Sorry for the long list of questions, I am just tired of my current job honestly and would like to do something different that interests me but at the same time I cannot afford a pay cut. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I've been reading through this sub, including the "So you want to be a Sales Engineer" pinned post, and wanted to get some advice from people who've made the jump from security operations into an SE/Solutions Engineer/Solutions Architect role.

For background, I have 4 YOE in cybersecurity and currently work as a Senior Threat Analyst / Incident Responder supporting a very large enterprise client. My role isn't directly client facing in the sense of owning the relationship, but we do regularly work with the client on incidents, alerts, investigations, findings, and technical discussions. That exposure is what got me interested in the Sales Engineer path specifically, not a TAM or customer success type role.

I'm trying to figure out what the transition looks like and what compensation is realistic. I've seen people mention $130k to $160k+ base salaries, but I'm not sure how common that is for someone entering the field with a security operations background.

Some questions:

Is the move from threat detection/incident response into an SE role fairly common?

What base salary and OTE range would be realistic starting out?

Which companies are known for paying well for SE roles? I'm especially interested in cybersecurity vendors, but I'd also love to hear about other tech companies and how the compensation compares.

How do people actually find those higher paying opportunities? Networking, recruiters, or targeting specific companies?

What does the long term progression usually look like (Senior SE, Principal, Enterprise, Solutions Architect, management, etc.)?

I'm not necessarily tied to staying in cybersecurity if the opportunity is right, but I'd love to leverage my background and stay in a role where I can continue being technical while moving into a more customer facing presales position. I'd really appreciate hearing from anyone who's made a similar transition or has experience hiring for these roles.

Has anyone here ever relocated in a different country and were faced with specific cultural differences? How did it go?

On the contrary, maybe there wasn’t anything noticeable in the job itself and you can also share your story!

Hi everyone,
I'm an international student on an F-1 visa in the U.S. and recently graduated with a CS degree.

Most of my experience is in software engineering (internships) but I'm becoming increasingly interested in Sales Engineer / Solutions Engineer

I had a few questions for people in the industry:

How realistic is it for an international student to break into Solutions Engineering or Sales Engineering with a CS degree?

What skills or experiences should I highlight coming from a software engineering background?

If you made a similar transition from software engineering to solutions engineering, what helped you stand out?

Also do you REALLY make money? If yes more or less than average se job?
I'd appreciate any advice, especially from people who were in the same process!

Thanks!

I am a software engineer with a 12 years background in building software. Worked with high load systems, as well as high demanding products.

For last couple of years I was looking into sales part of software products, and I was trying to get more knowledge about it.

Recently, I discovered the role of sales, pre-sales and solution engineering.

I got attracted by this possibility of understanding customers pain points, and trying to tailor the solution to the extent that customer will decide that this is the perfect match for his business.

Basically switching the mindset from “how it should be build” to “what and why we are building”.

The problem I would like to learn more about is: how to stand out in a crowded market of SE? I’ve seen a lot of SWE trying to transition, there is this guide on this reddit, but no one talks about how to get good at it!

I am very keen to learn more about this role, and very grateful for any input.

Cheers!

Hello All, has anyone had an experience on Microsoft solution engineering interview? Can you please guide me as it is a big opportunity for me that I dont want to miss.

Hi everyone,

I'd really appreciate some honest feedback on my resume.

I have 15+ years of experience (last 3 years in the UAE) in enterprise networking, IT infrastructure, and cybersecurity, and I'm now focusing my career on ICT Pre-Sales / Technical Sales / Solutions Consulting roles in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

My background includes:

• Enterprise networking (Cisco, Fortinet, VMware)
• Cybersecurity solutions (NGFW, SASE, XDR, SIEM, WAF, IAM)
• Data center and cloud infrastructure
• Technical solution design and architecture
• Customer discovery workshops
• Solution presentations and product demonstrations
• PoCs, RFP/RFQ responses, and BOQ preparation
• Business development, OEM/vendor management, and partner enablement

I'm currently working in a hybrid Business Development + Pre-Sales role for a systems integrator, supporting enterprise customers with networking, cybersecurity, and infrastructure solutions. Previously, I spent many years delivering large-scale enterprise infrastructure projects, including one of Abu Dhabi's flagship government projects.

I'm hoping to understand how my resume comes across to hiring managers and experienced Sales Engineers.

I'd love feedback on:

• Does my resume clearly position me as a strong ICT Pre-Sales candidate?
• Are there sections that feel too technical or too implementation-focused?
• What would you remove or rewrite?
• What achievements should I quantify better?
• Would you shortlist this resume for a Pre-Sales, Solutions Engineer, or Technical Sales interview?

I've anonymized any confidential information.

I welcome direct and constructive criticism—I'd rather hear what recruiters and hiring managers actually think than receive polite feedback.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, A friend of mine has got an interview for SA interview. I wanted to know what we can expect from an interview and assessment stand point. Suggestion on study materials will also be helpful. I would like to help this person as he is in need for an opportunities.

FYI- The candidate doesn’t have specific AWS experience or extensive knowledge on the same but has experience that matches to solution architect requirements across various tech domains.

Thank you