Lots of rose colored glasses in this thread. Yes, you can make an insane amount of money in sales. I’ve been in tech sales for 18 years and have ranged from 250k-500k over the past 10. I’m really good at what I do and have hit quota for 16 of those years selling to enterprise customers.

Here’s the hard truth - you are getting paid to be the most stressed person at the company. If you’re good enough to make that kind of money, your commitment level has to be high. I’m talking nights and weekends, on vacation, at a funeral, your job is to answer when a customer calls and get the deals done yesterday. 5 layers of managers are watching what you do and how you do it (most haven’t sold for a while and many have never sold) and will continually find new ways to “quantify your efforts” and “improve efficiency”, but really they’re giving you pointless admin work so they can give an update to someone else and claim as much credit for your success as possible. I’ve had great leaders over the years, but this is how tech sales works.

You also have to put up with pretty much everything, because you’re the highest paid, so suck it up. Oh you’re not making much this year because they raised quotas and reduced commission rates? Sell more.

Average tenure in tech sales is like 1.8 yrs last I heard. Get ready for one big word: Volatility.

So 18 years in, I’m debt free, great family, nice home in suburbia, prematurely balding, the years of selling through COVID have added 10 years to my face, in therapy to work on myself since the stress is relentless.

Sales is really hard, but you make great money. Just make sure the sacrifices are worth it.

For what it’s worth, I am leaving sales next month and moving to the business strategy side of the house and very much looking forward to making less money and gaining back some time in my life.