Anyone here a sales engineer?

[y4m]

How did you end up doing that? Do you like it? What will you do next?

[dawnyp]

I was for about 5 years prior to transferring into product management. I enjoyed it for a long time but after a while I got very tired of the travel involved and needed a better work/life balance. I ended up doing it by luck. My first job as an SE was after years of working in support wanting something different I applied for an SE role.

[y4m]

I come from more of a services/delivery part of my organization, but I'm already doing a lot of sales engineer work, and I enjoy it. Don't mind the travel either, although the client expectations were exhausting me (it seems like a Sales Engineer would have less of that though than my current position).

Thanks for your insights. I'm wondering what my career path would look like if I got out of my current relationship management role and into more pre-sales. Where would I go next (project management is not a bad option)?

[dawnyp]

My path was very similar to yours. I was doing a lot of the client services, professional services and post sales support. It was an easy transition to the SE role. I really enjoyed the travel for the most part. Got to see a ton of places I wouldn't normally see. At my company it is possible to move from SE into many other roles. It opens up quite a few doors. People have gone into direct sales, business development, training, product management and product marketing.