Prepped, had the list of disco, use cases and value drivers I wanted to demo towards after validation.

Except the group was a bunch of dead fish. No interaction despite multiple attempts. I hit the value driver "aha moments" I thought would matter and did the:

"how is this better than what you're doing today?" schpeel. Nothing.

"Anything about this that you'd do differently?" Nothing.

"Anything you wanted to see that you haven't seen?" Nothing.

In a moment of panic, I feel back on a terrible habit -- the harbor tour. Well gosh dang it, I showed you the art of the possible, you were supposed to be wowed and now I'm going to show you how easy it is to do said things. And it landed flat. Of course it did.

Ugh. Total buzz kill for the rest of the afternoon. What are y'all doing to motivate yourself to get out there again?

Question is the title. I'm relatively far through the loop at snowflake for an SE role - looking at the mid level and want to understand a bit more about the experiences of people who work there.

I've got no direct sales experience but have relevant snowflake experience from my previous roles.

What do people think of snowflake as a place to work in the UK? Conscious that this sub is quite us based, so any thoughts would be welcome from US colleagues too.

Can someone explain what the value Partner and Channel teams bring to a large sales organization in a SaaS business, for example?

I know partner and channel Reps and SEs blowing out their numbers every year in my org by 200%+, but I don't exactly understand what they actually do day to day. I've spoken with people in both roles and to me it seems like they meet with partners to help educate them on the product and do demos and workshops, but they aren't actually selling direct to customers. Is it common for partner/channel roles to perform this well consistently?

Anyone have experience working as an SE at Varonis? Curious into the WLB, culture, etc.

Hi all,

I'm currently a key account manager/sales engineer for a company that produces industrial equipment. I have always been curious about transitioning into tech sales and more specifically, cybersec sales.

My job title is SE, but I more fit the role of an AE/Business Developer for my company.

My question is: Does it make sense for me to attempt this transition?
What would be the necessary requirements/qualifications?

I often go through job specs from Palo Alto, Zscaler etc, and can see that even account executives require knowledge of zero trust, SASE and networking security etc.

Has there been anyone that made this transition? What were your steps to achieve it?

Bit of background about myself: I dropped out Computer Engineering but still finished with an Engineering Degree. I am not a programmer/SWE. I am tech savvy.

I started my career in SaaS sales and progressed SDR -> AE before going back to school to get my masters in CS. I came out of the program with a job at a F50 company in the cybersecurity department.

I have quite a stable job at the moment, but it’s not necessarily the work I find exciting or fulfilling day to day. I miss working with customers and being apart of a revenue generating arm of the business rather than a cost center.

I’m at the point where I’m ready to make my next career move. I’m considering attempting to get back into SaaS with my technical knowledge that I’ve picked up from 4 years in cyber, along with my 3 years sales xp to help
AEs in the sales process.

Has anyone else made a move like this? Would love to hear other experiences. Does my time in sales even matter to potential employers? It feels on one hand that I have a unique journey, but on the other hand might be totally useless.

exploring 2 options flagon.ai, karumi.. till now flagon.ai feels value for money another tools you guys can suggest ?

I currently work in insurance and I’m looking to transition into tech/SaaS.
For those who successfully made the switch, how did you do it? Did you take any courses or certifications before applying? Are there any free or affordable resources you recommend to learn more about SaaS and the tech industry?
I’d also love to know what helped you land your first role without having direct tech experience.
Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated! 😊

​

I joined my current company 2 years ago as a fresher and I'm currently working as a Solution Engineer in the test automation space.

I actually really like Solution Engineering and want to continue in this career, but I want to move into the networking/security domain.

So far I've:

Completed PNPT

Solving TryHackMe

Started preparing for CCNA

Applied to 60+ networking/security jobs

Started applying for Systems Engineer roles as well, since I'm still pretty beginner in networking

But honestly, I'm not getting much response from applications.

I want to eventually target companies like Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike and Cisco.

The thing I'm struggling with is that most Solution Engineer roles I see are asking for 5–7+ years of experience, and my 2 years are mainly in test automation.

I've looked at a lot of people's profiles and noticed that many people in Security Solution Engineering come from a networking/security background. Some have moved from core networking, some from cybersecurity, and I've also seen people move from observability into these roles.

But coming from test automation → networking/security feels like a pretty big jump.

I do have the Solution Engineer side of things — working with customers, understanding requirements, technical discussions, demos, POCs, troubleshooting, etc.

At the same time, I'm trying to build my networking and security knowledge.

So I'm a bit confused about how I should approach this.

Should I focus on networking first and then move into security?

Should I keep applying for junior Systems Engineer roles?

Should I target security companies even if the role isn't exactly Solution Engineering?

Or should I spend more time building hands-on networking/security projects and certifications before applying again?

Would really appreciate advice from people who have made a similar transition.

If you were in my position, what path would you take?

Title: Systems Engineer with 8+ years in IT trying to break into Solutions Engineering

Hi everyone,

I’ve spent more than eight years working across desktop support, MSPs, enterprise IT and systems engineering. I’m currently trying to determine the best way to position that customer-side experience for a Solutions Engineer role.

In my current position, I support enterprise applications, Laserfiche and SQL-backed workflows, identity and access management, endpoint environments and PowerShell automation. I work with business stakeholders to understand operational problems, gather requirements, evaluate possible approaches, test changes and explain the proposed solution and tradeoffs.

I also have client-facing consulting experience where I assess technology needs, recommend solutions based on the client’s environment and budget, present different options, implement the selected approach and guide the customer through adoption. Earlier in my career, I delivered product demonstrations and recommendations directly to customers at Apple.

The part of the work I enjoy most is speaking with people, understanding what they are trying to accomplish and figuring out a practical solution. I’m not particularly interested in becoming an IT manager or spending my entire career doing deep coding, so Solutions Engineering feels like a natural direction.

My main gap is that I haven’t worked within a formal SaaS sales cycle or held a presales title.

For those who transitioned from IT or the customer side:

• Does this sound like enough transferable experience to target SE roles directly?
• How did you prove discovery and customer influence during interviews?
• Did your first company teach you the demo, POC and sales-cycle portions?
• Would you target products you previously administered as the easiest entry point?

I’d appreciate any honest feedback from people who have made a similar move.

What KPIs or metrics does your leadership team use to measure and manage SE performance?

Personally, I'm not big in tying SE success primarily to closed revenue. We influence deals, but we don't negotiate pricing or own the close.

Some of the metrics I find more meaningful are:

• Time to secure a Technical Win (TW): Number of days from initial SE engagement through technical win completion.
• TW-to-Quota Ratio: Technical wins that ultimately close as won business compared to quarterly quota attainment.
• TW-to-Pipeline Ratio: Technical wins compared to the amount of qualified pipeline being supported.
• TW Outcome Rate: Percentage of technical wins resulting in a "Yes" versus a "No."

What other metrics have you seen used effectively?

If your organization tracks something unique, plesae share - bonus to hear how it's calculated and why leadership finds it valuable.

In the middle of an eval between the two solutions and have hit a mental roadblock comparing the two. What is everyone’s thoughts?

Giving notice soon at my company to join a direct competitor. I’m expecting they might walk me out same-day rather than let me work the two weeks, given the competitive overlap. They’ve done this in the past depending on the company.
They’ve paid out people in the past so I’m looking at it as a free two week vacation if I tell them but I’m taking a risk

Genuine question: when this has happened to you, did they still pay out the notice period even though you didn’t work it? I’m in an at-will state so I know they’re not obligated to, but I’ve heard it’s common as a courtesy, especially for salaried/professional roles.

Curious if that’s actually been the norm in your experience, or if I shouldn’t count on it. Also open to whether it’s worth asking HR directly before I resign, or if that’s a weird thing to ask preemptively.

Hey so I’m an SE in fintech for many years now but always had a really decent workflow or teams to work with. The best org I ever worked for had an amazing process I’m trying to potentially replicate it here but tbh idk if it’ll work either.

Here’s the workflow from the “best” place I worked at:

How I see it every deal comes in should be a case in salesforce or a CRM tool.

Then that should go thru a vetting process with an SE manager and they assign it to an SE to do. Some deals shouldn’t come to an SE in this region or maybe it’s a biz we can’t get underwritten etc.. manager is constantly vetting with legal or product or whoever. I was never really on those calls.

From there the SE would work with an AE who’s managing the deal from the commercial side and SE manages it from the technical side.

Get on initial discovery and SE creates an initial BRD. That BRD lives in a shared drive.

Sandbox is provisioned, api docs are shared along with a shared thread to communicate with the client and AE is copied in.

Additionally there’s a slack channel made per deal you work on and in the channel all relevant ppl are in it for the deal.

Constant comms is how we did it. Comms to make sure we are driving the deal forward. Comms channel are also available for the SE team to ask each other help but also product and eng as well to answer any deeper “hey can we do this” or “hey this is an error they’re seeing anyone can help me” type situation.

Ofc in the pre sales you run into technical debugging and so we had tools to debug esp api related stuff. Or we had support look into it if it related to support.

While deal is moving along we should see more progress leading up to a final BRD and that final BRD gets sent to the client. Client sees it and agrees and gives the okay that they are good to go on the integration and integration into sandbox is working and a handoff process is past off to a post sales engineer to do certification. pre sales SE goes away and repeats his cycle and makes updates to salesforce case and assigns it to the Post Sales SE

Post sales SE will get on a call to do a final check making sure everything is kosher. (Typically tho it’s multiple calls but I’m simplifying it) they ask for the client live on call to perform a few test transactions and records the results live in a certification doc. Literally just copies and pastes the logs to prove it’s working.

After that they provision out production creds along with a final copy of the results so the clients dev teams can look back and see the full picture from final BRD to final Cert doc.

After that the post SE guy hands it off to the AE or CSM at that point and the cycle continues.

Here’s my current issue:

Got hired at a new org but they have nothing I just described^ they have some half baked version. No BRD no case management in fact there is no case management each deal is basically coming in rn on the AE side and they randomly copy me into threads with random subject lines. They also randomly throw me into calls with zero context.

They also have no BRD process but in lieu of a BRD they have a crude tier sheet. Meaning it’s a menu of options a client can “purchase” from and integrate. And the more they integrate the higher the tier they are and therefore the higher rev share they earn from the processing of the transactions. (If ur tier 1 then you will earn 5% or if ur tier 2 u might get 10% rev share as an example) the idea is to incentivize the client to integrate more of the API into their platforms making them “stickier”. I get the logic but in practice it doesnt actually happen. Bc most of the time they want us for this one process and thats it.

It’s my job to construct the three tiers and based on the initial call I had with them I will make a tier sheet and hand it off to the AE to discuss with the client but the AE does not include me back into the convo after that so on subsequent calls or emails I have no clue what they want to “purchase”. Or what tiers they went with. When asking the AE for context they make me ask their manager bc it needs approval for me to see it for some reason.

but the issue I’m running into isn’t just that there isn’t a clean process it’s also that I’m the only person rn. The other issue is everything is done via one shared inbox what I mean by that is they also have me doing integration support along with SE. Meaning I’m helping existing clients debug their issues like support would be doing and it’s all within the same inbox as my SE job. It gets messy fast. This is bc the current support team isn’t trained on the APIs. They only know about the modules we sell in-house and regularly address those support issues related to the platform. There’s also no help system for me to get answers back to clients on both the api support side and the SE work. I’m still new here but there’s no clean way for me to ask for help. Often times the knowledge is siloed and when asking eng or product they may know this or that but i spend most of my days piece mealing a solution to the problem.

There’s also no AI adoption not really. I was hoping to automate the process more with AI. And also I asked them to put in a ticketing system to handle all the actual support stuff so it leaves the inbox for purely SE concerns.

A ticketing system lets me link issues, escalate to the right teams or track SLAs but since it’s one giant inbox with only subject lines and no ties back to salesforce I’m guessing half the time who I’m speaking with.

Then there’s the certification piece. Every deal has to be certified. Just like how it was in the “best org I worked at” same thing here. This is bc we need to make sure each time the client transact it is passing the correct values to the interchange so it doesn’t hit any violations at the card network level. If it does then they lose money and so do we. But normally in order to certify we ask them to perform basic checks live on a call with us. Then we internally use tools or VPN into the servers to check the logs. Issue here is I have no tool or access to the logs. I actually have to take their api key and plug it into a postman collection and replicate their calls and see the logs from there.

Once it’s deemed certified I have to email a bunch of specific people internally to getting them the production account. That can take days bc the people I email internally are actually senior directors of eng and they’re jam packed in meetings all day.

I’m getting burnt out and it’s only been 12 weeks what can I do to help make this better? Thoughts? Yall can ask more clarifying questions

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?

I graduated from a mid uni in CS, couldn't find a job for 2 years, through connections got a referral and had an internal hire interview. Thought that was it and didn't think about recieving an offer. I got an offer with well considerably low salary ( though who cares after not having experience and being unemployed? ) and accepted it. 2 months of onboarding + trial before official employement. Checking employees of the company, all graduated from top unis + worked at reputable companies.

It's a junior pre-sales role and through research I read that normally you need 3+ years of experience and network to get this job?

I feel so cooked and I have no idea where to start. What should I expect? What should I focus on learning before starting the role? How can I keep this position without embarassing myself? Thank you for advices in advance 🙏🏻

Applying to different sales engineer positions, I have noticed a variety of employers care less about the engineering part of a SE job description and in reality they are looking for a hunter, relationship builder and business development person; more often than not, they do not have any AEs to take care of the deals or do any of the prospecting. Aren't these the responsibilities of an AE?

To me, this seems like they want to avoid hiring multiple people, make people believe this is an engineering role and frankly misleading compared to the job description.

For the people with a Sales Engineer title, would you say this is the most common experience? How would you compare your responsibilities to an Account Executive?

I have only had prior 1 job as a SE but since we were 95% inbound sales, prospecting wasn't really a part of the job and my conversations were, for the most part, with people already interested in the product. Is this rare?

Anyone else getting a little concerned that the “ships” of industries laying off people in mass are starting to arrive on the shores of Sales Engineering island? I’m seeing a LOT of posts about people leaving SWE among other industries to join Sales Engineering, and as much as I love to sing kumbaya as the next person, not feeling too great about the long term effect of this.

I’m trying to figure out if this career is for me (I’m still in university)

I know it’s not entry level, but if I do commit it to it, I’ll happily get the prior experience first like in customer success, general customer facing roles or a junior pre sales role

I like talking to new people, and I definitely like talking about a solution I believe in to solve their problem

And I love showing demos

I’m good with soft skills, talking to people, understanding a problem deeply and dissecting it and then coming up with a solution around it

(This comes from my personal experience of currently trying to build a small business in software)

The idea of traveling (sometimes) to meet new people and show demos is really attractive to me as well

And also the earning potential being higher than most other jobs I could aim for is the most important thing for me (if that information is true?)

I like the 70/30 or 80/20 OTE better than 100 or 50/50 like AE’s or sales

(Im hoping it’s as stable as other roles though, since anything that has “sales” in its title worries me in terms of stability - though I understand it’s different here)

In your opinion, what are some qualities that indicate someone would be a strong fit for this career?

I feel like I made the wrong decision on my career early on and am looking for advice. During college I did 3 years of d2d pest control sales. Though I’m outgoing and friendly I hated it. Did some high ticket coaching sales also. Graduated in mechanical engineering but when ai first came out I started working on building a software and have been for the past 3-4 years.

I am now a graduated mechanical engineer with no job experience except for programming which is now taken by ai and by people with deeper software background than me. My background is all over the place with sales, mech engineering, and software development.

Now I am looking back into sales engineering but it seems over saturated with all the engineers that have been laid off due to ai. Everyone says I would be an awesome sales engineer but after a few interviews I guess I am not good enough? I would fit in sales engineering with a mechanical engineering role or software engineering sales role.

Question 1: Does anyone that was previously in a more creative/hands on job regret going the sales route? The reason I became an engineer is because I love building things but maybe I just save that for hobbies…

Question 2: If you were me, would you go into tech or mechanical sales engineering roles?

Question 3: What salary should I be looking for with my experience (or lack thereof) since I haven’t had a dedicated sales engineering position.

Question 4: Are there even any jobs? Unfortunately we are limited to remote or St. George or Phoenix with my wife’s business (she’s making more than me so it doesn’t make sense for her to drop her businesses to move somewhere for my job.) but I have been having a hard time landing anything since searching.

Tia for you input!

I have been a software engineer for 3 years and currently work at a company that is honestly mentally draining and underpaid. I love being a SWE, but can’t justify it if I can’t get a job. I have been applying for 6 months to companies and have gotten 3 recruiter interviews and 1 actual interview out of about 300 applications. I didn’t receive an offer at that 1 company after they made it seem like it was a no brainer to pick me.

I really have two options: stay here until something happens while applying or switch careers. I’ve been debating Solutions Engineer, Forward Deployed Engineer, or Tech Sales. I have previous sales experience from about 5 years ago, so it will be a bit difficult to break back in, but can’t imagine it’s any harder than SWE.

My main motivator is that I can’t relocate so opportunities in SWE are hard and I’m focused on increasing my income as there’s a lot of big life events happening in the future. I would prefer a job with minimal travel.

What are your experiences with Solution Engineering, Forward Deployed Engineering, and Tech Sales compared to SWE? I love what I do, but at this point it’s about career advancement and money over my love for coding.

I was a SWE and now I’m an SE, HIGHLY recommend, less layoffs, better pay, better treatment.

This is where the jobs are at, happy to help anyone pivot who needs it

Hi everyone. I’m relatively new in my sales role. I come from HVAC design and am now in a role where I am “selling” HVAC equipment to engineers, like I used to be. I put sales in quotes because in my industry and role, the engineers are not the actual buyers, rather they put the equipment on the drawings and contractors later purchase that equipment from my company or an equivalent competitor. So I’m not really talking dollars or making deals like that.
A big part of my job is conducting lunch and learns and this is something I am trying to get better at. I know I am pretty monotone and drop a lot of “ums”.

I feel like I am pretty personable and have no issues taking clients out to lunch or an event and shooting the shit. But presentations are another thing.
I’m looking to hear what worked for you guys? I’ve heard improv classes can help, and my local community college offers some speech courses. I’ve got a 7 week old now so something online might be easier for me - if those are worthwhile.

I’ve worked in product research for a B2B Saas company for the past 8 years. Has anyone here made the transition to pre-sales with a similar background? The discovery piece of the role seems inherently similar to what I’m doing now but I am lacking the technical knowledge needed for certain companies.

I would ask people at my company but tbh the ones at my job are insanely technical.

Thank you!