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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

> That is, salesmen that also have a technical background, can handle crunchy sales and configuration questions, and can even do real, deep troubleshooting of the product they're selling.

I'm in the wrong business.

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> I'm in the wrong business.

nod nod

If you've both the people and technical skills required to do engineering sales, you're probably seriously limiting your earnings by remaining a programmer.

If one was so inclined, where would one start looking for these sorts of roles?

The folks I know of that do this work for large companies that do a lot B2B or enterprise stuff. They effectively lucked into the positions. Most started as programmers but -at some point- got noticed by their managers as having really good people skills, -whether through a stint in regular sales, non-front-line tech support, or just interactions with coworkers in the office- but one went from pure sales to engineering sales because of his side projects and general technical aptitude.

Sadly, I forget what these positions are actually called. Best of luck in your hunt! I hope you find and fill such a position and are both happy and richly rewarded in it. :D

Presales, Technical Sales, Sales Engineers

One route would be to explore opportunities for 'pre-sales' roles. Essentially, you'd be the technical go-to person for a customer evaluation of a software/hardware solution. The wider process would be managed by a salesperson, but the evaluation process would be your bag. You need your technical chops plus the people skills to modulate the whole exercise.

Edit: terminology

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