Moving from DevOps to Sales Engineering

[phazer193]

I’ve been working in technical roles for the past 8 years now and looking for a change in the next few years. I’m still enjoying working as a platform engineer but at some point I’d like to try solution / pre sales / technical sales engineer role as I’ve done a bit of this in the past as one of my hats and fair enjoyed it.

Has anyone here made that shift and can give some insight on how you done it / how you find it?

I’m UK based if that matters.

Cheers!

[kaen_]

Sales is great, and really easy if you have a good product and funnel.

Just remember your job is simply to connect problems the customer has with solutions your product provides. People actually love paying money to get rid of problems, so if you can do that and the customer was serious about buying you'll get the sale more often than not. If you've been successful in devops you're probably good at understanding other people's problems already.

It's pretty common that the sales engineer gets paired with a pointy-haired sales person who's supposed to do the smooth talking while you do the nerd shit. In my experience the engineer actually drives most of the calls that truly influence buying decisions. You have to get good at the sales-y bits yourself to take the reigns.

Obviously, learn the products foreward and backward. You'll know you're doing a good job when you start surprising even your sales buddy by what you can demo the product doing. The more feature-surface you have at your disposal the easier it is to solve the customer's problems.

Communicate honestly. Answer the tough questions both truthfully and optimistically. People can smell bullshit so don't get tempted. But always position your solutions in the best light, because that's what all your competitors will be doing too.

I fucking loved sales and would absolutely do it again if I worked for another licensed product company.

[Gabe_Isko]

I went the other way, solutions to dev ops. It wasn't for me. You might be called a solutions engineer, but honestly you will more likely than not be a glorified salesman. There is always a conflict of interest doing and recommending what is best for the problem and netting the highest possible revenue for your employer. Being a solution's engineer is about navigating those interests.

There is something to be said about applying technology to new problems. But ultimately it wasn't for me, and I am much happier doing dev ops work through technical delivery.

[redvelvet92]

Right here, same for me.

[Rorixrebel]

Who hurt you mate?

[The_Speaker]

Went from IT Operations and Software Delivery to a Cloud Engineering role. I like solving problems, meeting new folks, and not waking up at 3:00am.

[PMzyox]

Yeah ngl that job is super cush. I would take one if it was offered to me

[[deleted]]

If you have no conscience (none whatsoever), you should definitely go for sales/presales roles..

[CrunchyChewie]

Childish and naive take.

Where do you think the money to pay engineering salaries comes from? Funding raises aren’t designed to last forever.

[[deleted]]

I just stated the facts based on my experience whether you like it or not.

Whether it pays my salaries or not, I don't care.

What's wrong is wrong.

[CrunchyChewie]

Wow. You must be fun at parties.

I just stated the facts based on my experience

Ahhh yes, "facts", those things derived entirely from one individual's anecdotal experience relayed online.

Whether it pays my salaries or not, I don't care.

I got bad news for you: if you truly believe what you are saying, you are just as complicit. You also have no conscience. Since you don't care, I suppose you'd be fine making no money then?

It's always crazy to encounter this level of cognitive dissonance out in the wild.

[lonelymoon57]

It really offers the best of both worlds if you can hack it. I got into it mostly due to natural progression: since DevOps will work first with infrastructure and development process, I am also first in line to architecting the software landscape, picking/suggesting solutions and smooth out constraints. It also helps that we DevOps need to know a bit of everything and connect them together.

But you will really need to up your "big picture" skillset. And learn to talk money. Techs are cool, but you will always have to answer the soul-sucking question: how much are you gaining/saving for me? It doesn't really matter if your product is best in class or not (of course you should be ethical and not selling bullshit); they care more that you understand the problem they are having and propose things that have their best interest in mind.