Ever wondered, what is a sales engineer?
When I was in college, I knew that I wanted to get involved in extracurriculurs. In fact, I chose my university primarily for that reason. But, I didn’t want to spend my time after class doing the same things I was doing in class. One day, I was sitting in my Introduction to C lecture when a student stood up and pitched The Society of Sales Engineers.
“Want to be an engineer that can communicate?” Those words sold me. I was not going to be another stereotypical engineer that lacked communication skills and I sure knew I wasn’t going to learn those skills in my coursework. So, I joined.
Two years into my membership, I was elected President of the club. Embarrassingly, at this point I still didn’t really know what sales engineering was. I knew the skills involved and I even competed in a couple competitions, but I just didn’t have the full picture. I did not know how to describe a sales engineer because I did not have a good understanding of why they existed in the first place. What purpose did they serve? What problem did they solve?
Why do sales engineers exist?
My personal research led me to the increasing demand for “tech intensity.” Tech intensity is a measurement of an organization’s ability to adopt innovative technology and propagate the benefits of that technology in their business processes. As Microsoft puts it,
Tech intensity = (Tech adoption x Tech capability) to the power of trust
In a world where technology exponentially scales output, strong tech intensity is a requirement for a business to stay competitive. Don’t believe me? Listen to this Business Wars podcast about Netflix.
Netflix wasn’t always the streaming giant they are today. Netflix and Blockbuster started with the same service — they provided movie rentals. Blockbuster had a store front; Netflix had a website. Soon, Netflix would explode as they started building movie distribution warehouses close to their customers. Using software and AI, Netflix understood their customers. Today, we don’t have to get off the couch when we want to watch a movie.
Netflix built the tech they needed and they are widely considered a tech company. This still sounds like an engineering problem, not a sales engineering problem.
There is another great Business Wars podcast on Walmart vs. Amazon. Walmart sat in the spotlight as a massive retailer with beautiful low prices. One day, a book store would change that all. Just like Netflix, Amazon was utilizing new technologies to maximize output and build trust with their customers. Walmart had to adapt — and they did.
The real need for sales engineering lies in the story of Walmart. How does a non-technical company maintain technical intensity? This is why sales engineers are more relevant than ever.
Sales Engineers — The heroes of our story
Not all heroes wear capes, and I’m sure companies like Walmart can agree. Walmart didn’t need to start from scratch to grow into a competitive tech giant. Walmart needed a solution. Solutions are what sales engineers are destined to provide.
I must admit, I do not know the intricacies of Walmart’s comeback. But I do know they did not have the time to build out hundreds of millions of dollars in technical infrastructure to support the digital scale of Amazon. They also couldn’t just walk into a store and ask for a website to support their massive user base. This was a very complicated situation. They needed a sales engineer (or in this case a team of sales engineers) to guide them through their technical journey.
See how Walmart utilized a technical provider to meet their customer demand.
The best kept secret in engineering
Sales engineers are like quarterbacks in a complex technical selling process. I’ve talked a lot about software in my examples, but not all technology comes in the form of 1's and 0’s. Sales engineers can also be found in the industrial automation and mechanical space, biomedical, computer hardware, welding, electrical, and more! I like to say, sales engineers solve human problems with technical solutions.
I love sales engineering and I hope you do too, but sales engineering is not for everybody and that is okay. Sales Engineers are on the sales team, not the engineering team. Yes, they give product demos, set up environments, even create proof-of-concepts, but ultimately their job is to discover opportunities, build trust, and sell a product or service with conviction.
I encourage you to explore sales engineering if you crave:
- Direct customer impact, watch your work come to life with every new solution you construct
- A new take on engineering, add social to your job description as you embark on a customer centric, technical career
- A lucrative career option, live a financially-stable and healthy lifestyle earning a high-base salary and additional revenue based rewards
I hope you enjoyed my journey to discovering sales engineering. If you are interested in learning more about sales engineering or perhaps becoming a sales engineer yourself, checkout out the National Society of Sales Engineers.
