alt Hacker NewsMy path went from engineering-aligned (math) to engineering management back to engineering to product to program management to solutions engineering to account executive.
Honestly I had a negative connotation about sales for most of my career, but turns out I really love it. The exposure to different problems every day is awesome and more like a puzzle than work to me. I feel a bit of reverse imposter syndrome though, like I should feel bad that I didn't "make it" as a real engineer. So that's a weird feeling.
One thing I try to do in my company is pull engineers into sales calls and proofs-of-concepts if I can. I think that exposure to both real users and unique environments is important for their growth and novelty in the job.
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Sales is amazing but if your companies sales people require engineering to build POCs a lot of the times or always have to sell some custom solutions, then it wastes a lot of resources and it usually indicates the company is losing product market fit.
I love hearing this.
My story: mostly business analytics (2005-2022), sales engineering, sales (both at same tech start up), and now running a solo consulting business.
I also really liked sales. Updating a CRM, not so much. But sales allowed me to spend my day talking with people about problems. No day the same, and lots of focus on finding different/better ways to communicate.
In what industries did these roles happen? Same industry/domain or have you changed that as well?