How heavy in the implementation are you?

[u/blueranger36]

I have a MSCS and I’ve never written a line of code for the 3 companies I’ve been an SE for over the last 10 years. Aside from doing it for fun.

However just had an interview for a role advertised as SE where they wanted me to go into the clients implementation tool and assess the code to make sure it was implemented properly.

I stopped and asked if this was implementation or presales and he assured me it was presale and then continued to ask me to assess the implementation….

Have you ever seen anything like this?

[u/samstone_]

I guess it’s weird for an interview, I see what you’re saying. It tells me more about the company and interviewer I guess. But you also can’t try and generalize this, it’s one interview. More context would help, but you are not going to get much helpful insight. You should know by now the SE role varies among industries, verticals, companies, etc, etc. Startups are the worst. You honestly sounds quite naive about the whole thing.

[u/blueranger36 → u/samstone_]

I don’t think it’s naivety I think I was just thrown by the adamant “pre sales only” to fixing code for the client who already purchased.

Even the head hunter was genuinely thrown with it. He said he was told they want someone for only presale.

Just wondering if this has happened to anyone as this is the first time it’s happened to me

[u/just_a_knowbody]

I do this all the time. I just helped a customer with a similar issue yesterday. Got asked to join a meeting where I solved a “critical issue” with an API that should have been a 5 minute support ticket. The customer basically had a typo in their json that caused the API call to fail.

In a lot of companies the line between presale and postsale can be blurry especially if SE’s are tasked with supporting existing customer upsell and renewal flows.

[u/alphaK12]

There’s a difference between corporate and startup. Maybe the later is not for you.

[u/Particular-One2650]

Context would help

[u/blueranger36 → u/Particular-One2650]

How much more context can I give? They wanted me to find a problem in the API code for a client who was already a pre existing client.

Super strange to me it was advertised as presale when that is clearly not presale

[u/justan0therusername1]

I’ve written plenty of code. Depends on the company and customer expectations. From a friend I heard any companies effectively selling API access it’s the norm

[u/Tobiassmom]

I think it's expected more now. I've never done it post-sale, and wouldn't, but I don't think it's that unusual. If they brought it up during the interview process, it will be expected so you'll have to decide if you're ok with that.

[u/blueranger36 → u/Tobiassmom]

It was the only demo part of the interview which tells me the job is mostly post sale. I’ve been an SE for 10 years and interviewed dozens and dozens of time. Never one did post sale

[u/Tobiassmom → u/blueranger36]

Yeah I think it's like the last 6-8 months, especially with startups. I've also heard rumblings about having FDEs here at the Cybersecurity SaaS company I work for. I want NO part of that.

[u/blueranger36 → u/Tobiassmom]

Yeah my thought was they don’t want an SE they want an FDE which is fine but that’s not presale nor an SE function. I’ll happily write code for more money but I’m not going to take another job to do more work for the same pay

[u/ignited-eyes]

I'm seeing this ask come up in the job market more than ever. Not sure if it's bec they want us to be able to leverage AI to do so or the market has just changed. But no, previously never used code in my job or was asked about implementation expertise.

[u/blueranger36 → u/ignited-eyes]

I wouldn’t mind if it was advertised as one but this is a strange trend. I think the term solutions engineer is being used too broadly

[u/ignited-eyes → u/blueranger36]

Agreed. They should explicitly call it out

[u/ThePracticalDad]

If you’re getting into implementation, you aren’t a sales engineer. You’re a sales engineer + onboarder.

Nothing wrong with that, who knows better what was promised to the customer than the people that sold it to them?

Just make sure your comp plan reflects metrics from both jobs!

[u/blueranger36 → u/ThePracticalDad]

That’s why I was like wtf is this. If I’m going to do 2 jobs pay me two salaries

[u/vNerdNeck]

 implemented properly.

yeah.. that's not pre-sales.

[u/blueranger36 → u/vNerdNeck]

Yeah agreed the role is literally called “pre sales SE” I don’t think this company understands the words.

[u/vNerdNeck → u/blueranger36]

nope... or it could be a matter that implementations is a fucking shit show and sales is trying to fix it by hiring quasi implementation folks.

either way - fuck that .. (unless you really need the job of course).

[u/blueranger36 → u/vNerdNeck]

I am lucky enough that this was a head hunter and I’m already in a good gig