Hacker News Reader

Comment by bastardoperator | Hacker News Reader

To be honest, I used to think developers in tech did well, then I worked with some really good sales people in tech and realized they're making WAY more on top free vacations and spiff (even more money) opportunities. It's night and day. We've heard about developers making upwards of 500K, I've seen sales people make triple on a single deal with similar deals lined up for following quarters. It is insane, and most developers don't have a clue when it comes to this type of disparity in pay because they don't interact with that process or people at all in most situations. The work is very different, especially the types of pressure each role faces, but they're valued very differently. Maybe most folks know this, I had no clue.

View on HN

Sales pay scales are very bimodal. A handful of rock star people make incredible amounts of money, most just get by alright, and maybe a quarter drop out because they can't close enough. It can be very high pressure, and a significant factor in your own success is outside of your control (i.e. depends on your product/service actually being good).

In a more civilized world they'd have higher bases across the board and the commission/incentive structures would be less "winner-take-all" but they operate those divisions like running greyhounds around a track.

"You all know first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of Steak Knives. Third prize is you're fired."

This has always been the case. Sales is compensated based on the money they bring in. High-performing salespeople have always made way more than the engineers who built the products they're selling.

My GF works in sales. Nominally she makes $29/hr which is pretty good for someone with only a HS degree, and she is an hourly sales person so she gets time and a half. However, she manages a $1 million dollar portfolio of sales that are already completed and currently in between contract signing and fulfillment, and when the orders are fulfilled she gets .5% of the total contract amount.

Orders take about 6 weeks to be fulfilled barring catastrophe, so when it's all calculated out every 3 months she makes $29 * 62.5 (40 hours plus 15 * 1.5 = 40 + 22.5 paid hours at base rate) * 12 (weeks) + $10,000 bonus every 3 months = roughly $31,750 or $10,567 a month before taxes.

That's almost as much as I make with a BS degree in the tech field. It's crazy, but then again she does work more hours than I do.

There is a little more variance in sales people's earnings, since it's based on commission. Their base salary is probably pretty paltry. To do a proper comparison you want to look at OTE(on target earnings), that's how much they earn if they hit their numbers.

The sales people in tech i know get pretty good base pay ($150-250K).

The dark side of sales is that the instant you have a good year, your sales goal gets adjusted upwards which makes it even harder for you next year. If you're selling something that will give you 6-7 figure commissions, you can bet management won't be keeping you around once you've closed that sale.

A lot of the people in Reddit's fatFIRE community got there through software or tech sales.

What industry are you in?

Operating bastards.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com