Sales engineer

Sales Engineer is a job/role found primarily in enterprise software, hardware or professional services companies. The role serves to bridge the gap between sales acumen and engineering expertise. Initially, the products or services a company sold were easily understood by sales reps, who could represent these without assistance on sales calls. 

Any questions a prospect had could be addressed by the sales rep. As technology became more complex, generalists were replaced by specialists. In both cases a Sales Engineer will make a base salary that is proportionally higher than their Sales rep counterparts, and significantly more than the traditional engineers in an organization.

Sales reps, however, did not develop specializations. enterprise sales rep developed skills that got meetings with strategic buyers, but the sales rep was only expected to explain the solution at a high level, leaving the more technical aspects to be explained by the Sales Engineer. Far less common is the case where a Sales Engineer is compensated with a base salary plus bonus.

Sales Engineers, like their Sales rep counterparts, are hired based on their geographic location rather than their proximity to the corporate, or even regional, office. Working in another part of the country, or even outside the country, where the corporate offices are, a Sales Engineer may only make it to corporate once or twice each year.