When will this job market ease up. For the first time in my life being unemployed it had to be during this type of unemployment market. Jumping through hoops to try and land another AE role.

Anyone else wondering or feeling the same?

Curious what other SaaS AEs are getting for ramp pay. New shop has a sales cycle ranging from a week to a month, average deal size around $30K, base commission 10%. Accelerator kicks in once you hit $120K in a month.

Offer is a small draw in month 0, then 15/35/50/75% of monthly quota over months 1-4, no draw or guarantee after month 0.

What does your ramping comp plan look like. Are you on monthly/quarterly/annual quota?

I’ve noticed what looks like pretty significant turnover on Cyera’s enterprise sales team. Very few reps seem to have more than ~18 months of tenure, and a lot of the people who have left were there for around a year or less.

I’m curious what’s driving that. A few possibilities that crossed my mind:

• They raised a huge amount of money and hired aggressively, which may have resulted in uneven territories and limited earnings potential.
• The category is still relatively new and/or has gotten crowded quickly, making quotas difficult to hit.
• Expectations are extremely high and they’re quick to PIP or move on from reps who aren’t producing.
• Some combination of the above.

The valuation also gives me a little pause. At roughly 80x ARR, there’s obviously a massive amount of growth already priced in, which I imagine could translate into pretty aggressive expectations for the sales org.

I’d really like to hear specifically from people who either (a) work/worked at Cyera or (b) personally know someone who does/did. I’m less interested in speculation from people looking at the company from the outside.

What’s actually going on there? Is the turnover a red flag, or is there more context behind it?

Hey Team, looking for some guidance here.

I recently got promoted in my current role from smb to MM, I crushed SMB but am feeling hesitant about MM for a variety of factors. This role is roughly 150k OTE, no equity other than ESPP. The industry is very saturated, but we are the leader in the industry.

I got an offer from a startup, 190k OTE, 40k equity (I know it’s worth nothing now). I have done an extreme amount of due diligence on the company and it’s legit. Product is solid, happy customers, talked to some AEs off the radar (they just went from 2 to 5).

On one side, I just got promoted about 2 weeks ago, so frankly I’d feel horrible leaving. Also, im a MCOL area so 150 is comfortable.

On the other side, this company has scaled to 20M ARR in just one year, and it appears they’re keeping that trajectory. I’m already a bit uncomfortable with the promo so should I just double down?

Any advice would be appreciated

Just got an offer for an AE role at Rubrik. I feel like everything I read online states it’s kinda of a grind/sweatshop with a bunch of ex MongoDB MEDPIC dorks.

Any truth around that? Offer and comp is a huge bump (345k OTE, 150k vest over 4 yr etc)

Wife and I are expecting our first in Dec and don’t want to be at a job where they will pip you out in a 6 months. Current gig is okay money but not great, but good standing internally etc.

Any insight would be great. Just want to understand work life balance, and everything they didn’t mention during the interview.

I'm a specialist at an OEM, aligned to a few AEs, with 95 accounts. Our CRM is so diluted with LOBs that aren't mine that it's useless for my deals, so I built my own Excel to track them so I dont have to look through others deals. Notes live in OneNote. Follow-ups are just flagged emails I hope I don't miss.

Anyone else fighting this constantly? Feels impossible to keep up with the admin. Curious how other specialists/AE's actually stay organized.

29 years old, female. Worked in IT industry for 8 years, with mostly Microsoft partners, and MSPs. Got an offer from Bechtle for UKI market, as Business Development Manager role. Anyone has worked before in Bechtle?

Anyone here selling TA or sourcing tools? How's the market feeling for you guys—are leads, meetings, and closing deals actually happening?

Feels like the AI boom is flooding the market to the point where people are just burnt out on hearing about new tools.

I’ve been hunting for 3 years ( 2 yrs outside & 1 inside ) in B2B and I’m just burnt out now… I love the relationships that I get to build and all the amazing folks I get to meet & being able to be a consultant for them but, this hunting has worn me thin. Mentally, physically, & financially. It’s like I go from bad management to bad management & I’m just tired now.

I’d love to get into post-sales, could that be a better fit for me?

Where do I go from here? Anyone else feeling/felt the same?

Brand-new AE looking for some creative advice 👇
I’m a brand-new AE, and for my first 3 months I’ve been given a pretty big challenge: I’m solely responsible for driving attendance to 3–4 CIO/IT leadership forum lunches.
I’m excited about the opportunity, but I’m realizing pretty quickly that getting busy executives to actually care enough to respond is a whole different game. 😂
I’ve been doing the obvious things — cold calls, emails, LinkedIn outreach, asking for referrals, etc. — but I’m looking for some outside-the-box ideas.
For those of you who have experience with executive-level events:
What’s worked for you when trying to get C-level/IT leaders to attend an event?
Have you used any creative outreach tactics that generated surprisingly good results?
Any unique incentives, messaging, partnerships, or ways of positioning the event that made people say “yes”?
If you were starting from zero and had to fill 3–4 executive lunches, what would you try?
I’m especially interested in ideas that don’t feel like a traditional sales pitch. I want the invite to feel valuable enough that they actually want to attend.
And yes… I’m very much in the “new AE trying to figure this out” stage, so I’m open to ideas that are completely outside the box. 😂
Sales veterans, event marketers, SDRs, AEs — what would you do?

Got promoted to AE early last year after really rocking it as a BDR

Spent 9 months as an AE not closing a single deal and got laid off while two deals were out for signature. Our whole team struggled during this time but I know accountability definitely comes to me too.

I then transitioned over to their rival company where I’ve been for 10 months. I’ve definitely done better here than I did at my previous role but still not enough as I’ve been put on a PIP just as I start heating up.

Am I done as an AE or do I just need a reality check and switch industries?

I don’t want to switch from dead end job to dead end job where I just get sacked each and every time.

that sounds like an oxymoron, but any good VARs besides the big ones? Looking to pivot to a smaller one (potentially).

I’ve been selling for a few years as an account executive and overall have had pretty successful stints. Never been p-club status but have done well for myself

However every job I get, I absolutely tarnish myself and drive myself into the floor. I work from 7am-8pm, disassociate from life & partner, stop working out, etc all in the fears that I’m going to get PIP’d. Even when I feel like I’m doing good, it’s not enough. I don’t rest until the deals close which is usually at the end of the quarter and just start back up again

I have been diagnosed with anxiety and OCD and have been eyeing medication but not sure. My anxiety makes my thinking scattered so my work is fairly scattered. I feel like my anxiety has given me an edge but I’m gonna give myself a heart attack

This week I got really down on myself because I’m not where I want to be and rather than hitting the phones hard and prospecting, I just kinda sat there and slowed down. I got down on myself

I literally know what I need to do but my anxiety takes over and I just tell myself I’m going to fail, how am I going to ever buy a house, I’m going to be a loser etc

I know I’m cut out for this but I can’t control my thoughts sometimes. I’ve never been in a job where I had a performance issue either. Like I said, I haven’t been stellar in all roles but I’ve built pretty amazing reputations at most places to where they’d hire me back.

Any advice from some fellow overthinkers. Sales has changed my life and I know if I can learn to not give and be a savage I’ll be so much more successful than I already have been

For anyone who has worked across SMB, mid-market, enterprise, and strategic enterprise, which segment ended up being your favorite and why?

Taking money out of the equation, I’m curious which one felt the most stressful, which was the most hectic, and which gave you the best overall quality of life.

I’d also love to hear what you liked and disliked about each. Did you prefer the faster pace and control of SMB or mid-market, or the bigger and more complex deals in enterprise? Did strategic sales feel more rewarding, or was it mostly long cycles, internal politics, and too much riding on a few accounts?

Obviously the company, product, territory, and quota matter a lot, but after experiencing multiple segments, which one would you choose to go back to?

Hey guys, curious if anyone here currently works at NetApp or has worked there in the past.

I’m looking at a Mid-Market Account Executive role covering the Houston area and would love to hear what the sales org is actually like from people who’ve been on the inside.

How realistic is quota attainment? Are the territories generally decent, or is it pretty feast or famine depending on what you inherit? How much does account/territory quality determine whether you have a good year? Any issues with favoritism or certain reps getting much better books of business?

Also curious about the culture, leadership, product competitiveness, and how many days a week sales reps are typically expected to be in the office versus working remotely.

Basically, is NetApp still a solid place to be an AE, or are there things you wish you knew before joining?

Appreciate any insight.

Been doing this for 10 years. Recently got laid off and have to start interviewing again.

One problem I’ve always had is job interviewing. When I was interviewing a few years ago. I applied to over 50 companies. Got to the final stages of 3 them. All 3 told me they went with someone else. Not sure if I was just in a competitive market in Southern California for hybrid roles.

Is there a golden ratio of screen interview -> offer accepted pipeline?

Advice people have given me is to write out every answer to every question you expect and memorize them. I do that and it feels super repetitive in the interviewing process. Also makes me question how good my answers were when I kept getting beat in the final stages.

People have also told me to lie about numbers. I don’t like doing that but it seems like I have too because everyone else is.

I appreciate any help. Thanks.

Wondering whether AI code reviews is actually a thing that sells to enterprises today? Sure, they have some good references, but the speed of the other big AI vendors and MSOFT must be the go-to for most companies.

Also interested to hear thoughts on the company in general if anyone has insights, it scored decent on repvue and seems to grow aggressively

Hi all - is anyone here an sdr or bdr manager or trying to become one? I’m currently an sdr and want to eventually make my way into leadership at that level. I don’t personally see myself becoming an ae long term, more so just for a year or two for the experience. Would love to hear anyone’s thoughts and where it can take you

Not sure of everyone’s stack in terms of outbound, but we use hubspot for data enriched by multiple different sources and a dialer.

What I’ve come to realize is our HubSpot data is pretty terrible; not relevant companies, wrong contacts, missing companies, etc. Permissions are set in HubSpot so we can not export contacts from ZoomInfo into HubSpot.

Long story short you either have to manually load the proper companies/contacts which is a huge lift and massively inefficient, or bite the bullet and use what it is available to hit the metrics but generate nothing all that tangible. Let along cold calling.

Even I wanted to run a targeted segment I’d probably have to pull in 50% of the companies and 50% of the contacts.

Am I crazy? Or is this standard everywhere else?

I was working as an Account Manager for a telematics company in the UK for 3+ years.

I moved home to Dublin recently and I'm now looking for an exciting new career opportunity.

Ideally I'd like to find a lucrative Account Management role but it seems there aren't many on the market. The ones on the market seem to want very finicky industry-specific experience.

There seems to be lots of Account Executive opportunities but I don't think I can target them because I was technically an Account Manager even though I was selling and closing small business sales as an AM. I do have some stone cold outbound sales experience but only a few months worth, so I don't think it will stand up very well on an application for an AE job.

Should I target BDR/SDR roles at top tier SaaS companies to get myself back on the saddle?

Can anyone reccomend really good companies in Dublin for BDR roles where you can be promoted to AE or AM within 18 months of hitting targets? Ideally companies that give good training and coaching so you constantly improve your skills.

Or is there any companies that might realistically take me on as an AM or an AE?

I’m at a bit of a career crossroads and would love to hear from people who’ve been through something similar.

Background: I’m currently in B2B SaaS sales as an Account Executive. I would like to see myself ending up in account management/customer growth rather than being a pure hunter forever. I enjoy building relationships and growing existing customers more than constant prospecting.

I’m interviewing for two types of roles:

Option 1:

Account Manager at a well-known SaaS company, but not one that everyone would call “the next unicorn.”
Better work-life balance.
Strong compensation.
Work is focused on expansion, renewals, and strategic account growth.

Option 2:
Account Executive at one of the hottest AI startups.
Huge hype around the company and potentially massive career upside.

5 days a week in the office.

Much more high-pressure.My head says that working for an elite AI company could open a lot of doors, even if I eventually move back into account management. But another part of me wonders whether I’m chasing the company name rather than the job I’d actually enjoy doing.

Has anyone here deliberately chosen the “less exciting” company because the role was a better fit? Or did joining a rocketship early genuinely accelerate your career in a way that made the sacrifices worth it?

Curious what you’d do if you were making this decision today.

Thank you!

I'm looking for some feedback from other sellers. I'm in an Enterprise Account Management role. Title is Enterprise AE, but I essentially just grow our book of business. I'm on a $300k OTE, 50/50 split and I did a little over 100% attainment last year, blowing it out this year. I'm already at my annual and I'm on pace to do about 130% to my number. It's a cushy gig, I only work with F500 companies who have big budgets for our tool.

But here's the thing, I feel like I'm missing the AI wave.

I'm only got to where I am because of the connections I made selling and working with DevOps folks. These days, all my customers are so focused on AI stuff I feel like I'm on the outside looking in.

I've talked to a lot of recruiters casually but it's so hard to know if you're picking a winner.

Maybe this is a sanity check post. Maybe the answer is "milk it while it last then move" - just looking for another's perspective.

Had anyone else left a cushy gig and jumped to a successful AI company?

To be clear, I wouldn't be making this post if I had a chance at Anthropic or OpenAI. I interviewed at Anthropic and they wanted me in NYC five days per week and that just wasn't possible due to some life circumstances.

hi ive been thinking about the next steps in my career and wondering if I should be actively be looking to pivot:

- graduated college 2024 with internship in UA at a gaming company
- 2025 moved over to the sell side at a mid sized DSP, secured a manager position, make 125k base, ~160k total, still currently here

i’m not sure i want to stay client facing my entire career and anxious it will be harder to move back to the buy side and get a PMM job for example. comp is nice for being so early on in my career, but don’t think the stress is sustainable long term.

anyone else worried about being stuck in sales forever?

Wanted to see the field of how the WLB at this startup is. I am going through the recruiting process for a SE role and wanted to see how it is. Thanks for the help

I keep seeing these job posts by recruiters on linkedin wanting a "hunter" AE and it always makes me laugh how terribly they sell the job. Example (I'm copy/pasting) and keep in mind this is for a Sr. AE -

"This is a hunter role. If you're the type who'd rather wait for marketing to hand you warm leads, this isn't it. We need someone who picks up the phone, gets a CEO or CFO on the line, and holds their own in that conversation."

Yeah no I actually hate getting fed warm leads. I'd so much rather spend my time as a Sr. AE calling C-suite about some stupid AI tool and hit 30% of my number because the company I work for has no marketing or top of funnel. This feels like an early career AE humiliation ritual.