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hey everybody my name is trevor spiers and today i'm going to be talking about how somebody like you can become a sales engineer if you weren't aware sales engineering is one of the highest growing and highest paying careers in tech today purpose of this video is to give somebody who's interested in breaking into this space some practical advice for how to get there it's definitely not a super clean a structured career path for a lot of people it tends to be a field that people stumble into from another engineering trade and my hope is to share with you some things that work for me and some trends that i've seen in the industry for people who have moved into the role and been successful all right let's get started all right who needs sales engineers what type of companies like the number of companies and the type of companies that need sales engineers actually blows my mind up pretty much any tech company selling in a b2b way needs sales engineers but even some b2c companies are starting to hire sales engineers i was surprised to learn that guitar center and a lot of big music vendors actually now hire sales engineers to help their customers understand the technical aspects of different instruments and products it's pretty cool so i personally have an emphasis on i.t and it infrastructure that's my background but the the list and the the kind of logos i have listed here are absolutely in no way the only options out there uh from tech uh like hard tech hardware vendors software vendors there's a lot of specialized companies selling medical or even like chemical or or industrial things that need sales engineers there are a lot of different companies that need them and a lot of different types of sales engineers out there too so generally you need to become a technical expert in something before somebody will tell you trust you to sell that thing as a technical expert right so i've got some sample careers listed here maybe you're a security practitioner an it manager a software developer an infrastructure engineer right you found yourself into a technical engineering role that's awesome and you you have a few options right you could continue working up that career path and if you're an infrastructure engineer maybe you'll become an architect software engineers a lot of them you know will go start a company or become a principal engineer somewhere for security at csos for it managers maybe you want to be a cio or cto one day and you can do that within a corporate environment working for like a normal enterprise that isn't really selling a technology product per se that needs the sales engineers however if you want to get into sales what's really important is to build build a foundation right so to spend some amount of time usually a few years if you're watching this you may already be there you may already have that foundation built or you may need to work on building that foundation but somewhere and i know this is a big range but somewhere i would say between three and ten years building domain expertise for me it was building an expertise as a network engineer then after that you could cross over into sales land right and that may be directly into a sales engineering role uh it may also be uh um into a non-sales engineering role at a sales focused organization as a kind of middle step and i'll talk about that here soon i'll highlight this is not the only way to become an se okay this is just the most common way this is how i did it and so everybody that i know did it with the very rare exception of people that come in through like a college graduate type of program or an internship program all right i want to talk through some common paths that i see and this i've seen this through myself and also looking through linkedin i looked at pretty much every se that i'm connected to on linkedin and many that i'm not connected to when i was building this list out to find what are the common uh ways and the most common ways that somebody would get into a sales engineering role so first and foremost uh in order to land that first sales engineering job probably the number one path that i've seen and the path that i personally took is to get a job at a vendor or add a service provider basically work in a technical role at a company that has sales engineers right for me i got my break working at a company called vmware i started out in their professional services team and then after doing that for a few years was able to transition to being a sales engineer now i think that was a perfect path for me and it's also a really common trend i've seen within vmware but also within a lot of other big tech companies it's very common to see somebody doing tech support a professional consulting services type of work project-based implementation work or even you know product manager by technical account managers that are in accounts already it's very common to see those people move from a technical role to a sales role without even leaving the company that they're at it's easy right because you you when you take this path you go in and you get to build a lot of technical expertise on a certain product and you know to sell a product well as an se you need to have deep technical uh expertise on that product usually and so you already have half of that figured out and then you also have that organizational connection with the managers whenever you're moving internally within an organization and so i i think that your the odds are in your favor if you took a path like this the downside of this obviously is that you may not work at a tech vendor today and you might need to land a job at a tech vendor if you decide to take this type of a path but it can just be easier to move to an se role without any previous sales experience if you do something like this similarly uh somebody who might start at a partner or a reseller can make a similar move right whether it's you're in services or consulting or technical support or whatever some kind of technical role if you work at a partner or a reseller or an msp it's also a really common path to see those people move into being an sc as well and so these can be you know internet resellers these can be software resellers these can be a lot of different types of companies out there but but generally speaking these big vendors right think about ibm right for an example well you could ibm sells ibm but also there's a bunch of other companies selling ibm on behalf of ibm those are called ibm partners or ibm resellers right and so you can oftentimes find roles there and i would say even these roles might be easier to find sometimes because where like the big tech companies tend to be focused on certain geographical regions oftentimes if you live in a more remote or rural location a reseller or a partner is maybe an easier job to land because those tend to be regionalized that's the intent of these type of organizations is to be focused on their small geographic markets like for example my very first job out of the military is working for a small partner in the rural tri-state area of west virginia kentucky and ohio and that's a place where you would think like wow it's probably hard to get a sales engineering job in a town like that actually that company had many sales engineers right so point i'm trying to make here is don't rule yourself out just because you don't live in a major hub there are still options for you and i without a doubt working at a proper vendor or a product maker or working at an organization that resells products in a non-sales role will be a really low friction way for you to transition into sales eventually this might take a few years but it will pay off and you'll get to gain a lot of expertise and knowledge in the process all right the path number three would be people that move from a customer organization to a sales engineering role at either a partner or a vendor right so maybe you work for general electric right and general electric partners with tech vendors and tech resellers like uh vmware and cisco and maybe amazon web services or what or whatever right but these big companies partner with these organizations therefore if you are a a i.t leader a general electric or an architect or an engineer or a software developer there and you're working closely with these vendors already or at least working closely with these vendors products already it can be easier for you to make the transition into a sales engineering role there sometimes even without a lot of sales experience sometimes if you just know somebody in the company that will refer you from your work with them in the customer organization it could be a natural transition or if you just build deep product excellence and expertise like i'll use one example is you know i i see uh within the vmware world that i work today some people come from customers that get a lot of knowledge and expertise on a product called nsx nsx is a product that isn't super widely known by everybody in the industry so when we're hiring sales engineers finding somebody that worked at a customer who has strong people skills but also deep technical knowledge of the nsx product line can be a really good hire for a manager that doesn't want to spend months and months and months training somebody on the tech and would rather just find somebody who knows the tech and has decent people skills and train them on the more sales side of the job which for certain personalities is actually easier than teaching somebody the technology from the ground up so these are the top three paths without a doubt in my mind the only other thing that i would focus on is down here at the bottom left these are less common paths but they're still worth mentioning i would say these are pass focus for somebody who maybe has a little less experience maybe except with the exception of this one you might have a lot of experience going into a startup and then if you're somebody who already has an engineering background you should consider one of these few paths if you're at a customer today maybe you have relationships and you can make a direct move but if not maybe you want to move to a vendor doing a non-sales role and then transition to a sales role over the next few years i think any of those would be great paths okay so uh i want to close out with a few bits of advice because nobody's just going to give you a job right you're going to have to get your big break you're going to have to elbow your way in like any good job you'll have to do right so just some general advice things that have helped me and that i would highly recommend would be to build your linkedin or resume to highlight your sales and people's skills right look at job descriptions talk to other ses look at other ses that have been successful linkedin some resumes and build yours to kind of mirror that and focus on the skills that are maybe not just hard tech skills those are still important but you need to be highlighting skills other than that consultative skills presentation skills sales type skills right i would also say again take a non-sales job at a sales driven organization that works really well for me it does take a few years it's not a direct move into sales engineering however it can allow you to make the transition in a kind of seamless way and plus let's be honest working at a sales driven organization if you've never done that before is valuable in and of itself you'll get to meet other ses you'll get to learn more about the job and determine if it's something you would actually enjoy and you learn more about the sales process even for me i took a post-sales job so a delivery or consulting job at a sales driven organization and i learned a whole lot about the sales process and how sales work and how customers buy and develop and consume software in a role like that so it's a great learning experience of course it helps to network in any type of field specifically if you're trying to become an se you're going to want to talk to hiring managers recruiters and current ses all right i would seek them out on linkedin or maybe try to get involved in local communities or work in groups depending on where you're at obviously the internet makes this easier than ever so so there's really no excuse to to not and i i would say you don't have to be super aggressive you can just ask for conversations with people uh maybe tell them you're seeking a mentor or um or something like that most people are generally happy to help as long as they're they're not overwhelmed with other things that are are priorities to them i would say as you're on the phone with these people and really get on the phone don't just text back and forth you need to get on a zoom call or on a phone call with these people if it go if the conversation goes well ask for a referral or ask to be notified if a role opens if you're talking to a current sc usually they can put in a good word for you if they're man with their manager if they like you and if you're talking to a recruiter maybe they get all types of jobs and they're looking for somebody like you with a specific technical background to recommend to be an se somewhere you're talking to a hiring manager you know if they like you maybe they'll put you on the short list and notify you when a role comes open that's happened to me before and again i think going directly to the hiring manager could be challenging if you don't have a sales background a lot of se managers want somebody with a sales background so you have to know that you're working against that going in but it's definitely not impossible people do it all the time okay i would also say as you're speaking with people ask for advice say you know something like hey you know i really want to do this one day it's a goal that i'm going to work towards over the next few years what would you recommend for me in terms of experience or training that i don't have today that you think would make me a good fit now think of questions that you can ask that will you what you want is if the hiring manager looks at you and says and this person won't really be a good fit you want to know why you know you want to get their advice for what it is you can be doing right and so that way that specific individual you talk to um you know you're working with that you're answering to their specific concerns like maybe they say hey you don't have any sales training go take some sales training right uh there are some you can answer to their concerns directly but also it's very likely if a hiring manager tells you that you don't have something uh that or there's something that would prevent them from hiring you then other hiring managers would feel the same way and you know it it could be difficult to to process that through your own ego but this is the type of feedback that's really going to help you get better finally i would say you know you can just cold apply especially if it's a specialized sc role that matches your skill set i'll use an example here so some sales engineering roles are very salesy and less technical some are more technical and less salesy right well if you have a very specific skill set that not a lot of other engineers have applying for specialized sc roles matching that skill set can be very useful so you could become an expert on something and then sell that that thing as an expert right so these are just some some tips that i would recommend to kind of get your foot in the door nobody's going to walk up to you and give you a sales engineering job you're going to have to work for it it is a competitive industry but i feel really confident that if you are playing the long game that you can get there all right i'm going to close on this with some kind of general advice this is outside of the tactical advice for how to get your foot in the door but more just like as you're going through this process of learning about sales engineering and figuring out what this means to you and if this is something you want to pursue first and foremost you're going to want to be vocal about your goals okay don't be shy it's okay there's there's nothing wrong with wanting to be a sales engineer tell that to people right um you want to put that intent out in the world because you want those hiring managers those recruiters or those other ses or those other people that you're talking to to know hey that guy wants to do that thing they might give you advice that gets you closer to doing that or maybe they'll see a role that comes open and they'll they'll want to consider you for the role and if you weren't vocal about it and you didn't put that out there in the world nobody would have known so i i always recommend be vocal about your goals embrace stepping stones okay sales engineering is a kind of weird specialized thing you can't really go to college to be a sales engineer and so it's okay to take a middle step to get there and i'm telling you it will pay off if if you're looking for a fun engaging challenging job that is fulfilling but also allows you to to be paid very well and take care of your family in advance in your career stepping stones are going to be necessary sometimes and so just embrace those know that good things don't tend to happen overnight there's not really any cheat codes or shortcuts to life and taking a middle step at a tech vendor or a partner or something like that will get you closer to your goal and you'll learn a lot in the process and hey it the stepping stone can still be a step up from where you're at today right when i when i took my stepping stone job working in services at vmware that i was still able to make more money than i was making in my previous role at a as a customer at a company so this is something to consider uh i would just say generally educate yourself on business and sales i personally wouldn't got my mba just because i knew this might be something that i would be interested in pursuing but there's a lot of great online training if you don't want to pay for school books um just develop s-e-ish type of skills like presentation skills or maybe try to get a job where you're doing customer facing work because at the end of the day that's what's important is you need people to feel comfortable putting you in front of their customers and doing customer facing work is the best way to get good at that i would also say get to know yourself all right it's not a life for everyone make sure you will actually enjoy this try doing some presentations right make sure you enjoy working with people and presenting and consulting in a non-technical way as well as the technical work that you do because if you just like machines and money and you don't like people you will probably be better off just getting really really good at whatever your engineering discipline is and trying to move up in a technical track as opposed to transitioning to more of a sales type of track like like a sales engineer would be finally just be proactive right uh proactively network and establish mentor relationships this can be via linkedin twitter conferences in person virtual get on the phone um talk to people who you like and respect and have some backgrounds that you would like to mimic and get their advice on how to do this i find that most people are overwhelmingly helpful when you ask them and i know it can seem like maybe it's an inconvenience to ask but um you should just ask anyway and if they say no that's okay if you ask 10 people and only five say yes that's still great and those five people chances are because they said yes they're five of the good people uh because they're they're helpful and proactive in responding to somebody who's asking them for help and so just don't be afraid people out there are happy to help finally you can contact me uh linkedin directly is the best way to get a hold of me if you have any questions or you'd like to talk one-on-one about career planning or sales engineering in general and you can comment on this video if you have other questions but you probably should just reach out to me if you would like to dig deeper in into your specific background and and maybe seek some advice from somebody who's been in the business for a while now thanks so much for watching the video i hope that that was useful for you i hope you got the answers you were looking for hey if you didn't get the answer you were looking for please feel welcome to reach out to me directly and maybe maybe i can make another video that answers some of your specific questions or we can just chat one on one to talk through whatever's on your mind okay uh appreciate you watching like subscribe and do all that good stuff if you feel like it and until next time happy engineering happy sales happy happy be happy it's it's so easy right bye everybody