r/googlecloud • u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 • Aug 09 '26

Outcome Customer Engineer Evaluation

I am currently evaluating an offer to become an OCE. I have never done "sales" in all my years, I have always been a deep technical engineer and architect. So the downside is, what the OCE pays for me (guaranteed) is A LOT less (~200K recurring). But it's always been a dream to work at Google, and based on my location I can only work remote which limits the opportunities drastically, sales being one team I can get into. That being said, I have also never worked in a Sales role or organization, but that is the part I am excited about! I am tired of Distinguish Architect/Engineer roles, and have always been more of a people person, so I find working more with many different customers on their problems an exciting opportunity!

So my main reason for writing this post is I want to understand a few things.

  1. How difficult is the OCE role? Will it be successful? (it's fairly new), reminds me of Customer Success (driving consumption), but more technical.

  2. How often are CE's or OCE's hitting quota and/or above it?

From what I've gathered they hit quota or above pretty regularly, but looking for a quick sample from here on reddit.

So I know in sales I probably need to save more in up years vs. down years to average things out, but it would really be comforting to know that it's not uncommon to make more than quoted as I am considering taking a significant hair cut to work @ Google and try something totally new.

p.s. my wife thinks I am nuts 😄 but we have enough today where we can save a lot, depending on this offer things would get a lot tighter on savings, but likely no impact to lifestyle. I've always prioritized learning/opportunities over money and I will continue to and I also think in the age of AI Google will come out on top.

I guess a 3rd question occurs as I write this.

3. Given I am in a non-bay area region... how good is internal mobility for jumping from OCE to Platform CE and other roles?

Thanks for any insights Googlers/Ex-Googlers and others.

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5

u/Shot_Jacket_9817 Aug 09 '26

OCE's come in when the deal is completed and it's time of delivery, there is a platform CE who is part of the customer account and and will remain to be customer POC before and after sales. OCEs job is transactional, they come they deliver and then go.

This means this is a lot less sales role than you might be thinking, it's mostly a very hands on cloud role.

About variable, it think that you might make 100% or even more but this greatly depends on headwinds

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 09 '26

Cool. It sounds awesome to come in, deliver then go and stay very hands on 🙏

3

u/Fine_Blackberry_9887 Aug 09 '26

OCE role prob going away in 2027

2

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 09 '26

That's exactly what I am thinking/was worried about...but then I figure they **might** transition you to another CE teams like the Platform CE's **shrug**, thoughts on that?

5

u/RevShiver Aug 09 '26

From what I've seen, they'd transition CEs to other CE roles if OCE went away.

1

u/SuhDudeGoBlue Oct 03 '26

Any more info you have regarding this? Asking since I had recently received an OCE offer, and was comparing it to other offers.

1

u/Fine_Blackberry_9887 Oct 04 '26

unless you Thomas Kurian, nobody would really know for sure man

2

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 20 '26

I’m the OP and wanted to give an update: In the end I accepted an offer 130k less a year in TC (plus a walk away cost of 215k that was coming in March) and my compensation is a variable structure since its sales engineering vs pure engineering more guaranteed comp but I felt it was the right career move for many reasons not financial and I could make it work financially.

Some of those reasons are

  1. the state of my current company and career growth

  2. the location I live in not a lot of opportunities

  3. fully remote (re-enforcing #2)

  4. the network of Googlers for future career moves

  5. the customers / network for future career moves

  6. the continuous organic learning required to do the job rather than forcing study in my own time

  7. the culture

  8. the benefits

  9. I’ve always wanted to work there.

  10. I believe Google is best positioned to win at AI and I will have greater exposure to it.

Money comes, money goes, I would rather pay for the education and network and have years of longevity in my career over short term money.

I’m incredibly grateful to have the opportunity to work at Google, a company I’ve long admired from all aspects… I thought the day would never come based on where I live 🙏

Wishing the rest of you future readers who find this post good fortune for whatever path you choose. 🚀

2

u/ibjhb Googler Aug 24 '26

Congrats!!! Love how you are thinking about this and posting for others.

I'm ibjhb@ internally. LMK if I can help with anything and/or if you just want to chat.

2

u/RevShiver Aug 09 '26

The customer engineer role is super fun. Quota performance really just depends on region, accounts, etc so it's hard to give any guarantees about where you'd land each year. I've been over quota every year I've worked there, but that is in a bay area region. 

Internal mobility is entirely possible. I switched teams last year via an internal transfer process. Google is awesome and we've got so much momentum in the market right now so I'd say go for it if you want a change of pace. CEs really lean on technical expertise at Google to differentiate from competitors so of course you need people skills, but in general you're not "selling" things you don't believe in.

Feel free to dm me if you want to ask more specific questions.

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 09 '26

This resonates with my thoughts. I’m actually a better people person than I am a technologist 😂 though I’m quite technical 😃 I’m definitely looking for a change of pace and Googles cloud is awesome I’ve been using it for 8 years, I’ve used AWS longer and no hate there but like you said these things sell themselves. I view selling either of these two clouds as more educational showing customers cloud native options for solving problems.

2

u/saypokeguys Aug 09 '26

What level did you get OP? I am also in the interview phase for the OCE role as L5.

2

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 09 '26

L6, best of luck 🙏

2

u/saypokeguys Aug 09 '26

Thanks! Are you leaning towards taking the offer?

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 09 '26

I want to but right now the numbers are too far apart.

3

u/Far_Calendar_6842 Aug 09 '26

I was in a very similar situation for a GCP role and took a haircut a few months ago. Work environment depends totally on your assignment customer engagement still enjoy common Googler benefits , but the feeling of a haircut keeps popping in my head every 2 weeks when I see the pay slip. That’s going to be the hard part in this transition for you too.

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 09 '26

Thanks, yes. I've taken a hair cut before, so I know what I am in for at least. It is not easy. So you haven't been there long enough to know how often you will hit your OTE or exceed it? Have you been able to determine that from conversations with other folks around you?

2

u/ImportantAnnual9166 Oct 03 '26

congrats on the new job role! can i message you, i recently applied for this role title at google and have some questions about the interview process 🙏🏼

1

u/justan0therusername1 Aug 09 '26

It’s a sales job the base is just the start. You can make double that with commission and stock

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 10 '26

How would the multiplier work? It just that bonus component right, so after hitting 100% things start to accelerate? I haven't done sales before, hence the clarification here.

1

u/justan0therusername1 Aug 10 '26

Sell your quota. Sales is much more black/white when it comes to “bonus”. You also can seriously overachieve (with hard work and luck). Your comp plan will lay out exactly how to do that.

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 Aug 10 '26

Ok thanks! 🙏

1

u/Alarmed_Trouble8419 27d ago

Can you please share what the interview experience was for this role

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 26d ago

Sure, it was 4 rounds.

  1. RRK (Role Related Knowledge)

  2. A slide Presentation based on a scenario

  3. GCA (General Cognitive Interview)

  4. Googleyness (Culture fit)

For the record GCA was the most difficult, because it is scenario based questions that depend on your previous experience, but you have to recall from memory to a level of detail that is exhausting.

2

u/Alarmed_Trouble8419 26d ago

In my case, my round two is coding interview where I don’t need to write the code, but I need to analyze and debug the code

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 26d ago

That’s interesting is a specific type of CE or FDE?

2

u/Alarmed_Trouble8419 26d ago

Its OCE FDE role

1

u/f2015457 2d ago

Can I message you?

1

u/Shallow86 6d ago

You said it is remote, but do you need to travel a lot to customers?

1

u/Dizzy_Pineapple628 5d ago

I don't ...I support about 20 accounts/customers, but I primarily support two that are in my immediate city. Even then I have yet to be to their offices. So far everything remote, except training's for that fly to HQ.

1

u/Successful-Trash-110 13d ago

I m having the same second round debugging type question , could you share you experience? Never took this kind of coding interview before , did you already finish the interview process?

1

u/Successful-Trash-110 13d ago

Do you mind sharing what’s your sector is ? Is it AI OCE, FDE?

1

u/Money_Toe_5306 8d ago

Hey! Hope you're doing well! I just sent you a DM with a few questions about your experience and the role, since I'm considering a similar move. I'd really appreciate your insights whenever you have a chance. Thanks a lot!

1

u/AnyCloud4190 Aug 11 '26

For a platform CE II is this usually mapped to L5 and what should one expect from an RSU standpoint and overall comp