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Second this. I worked in Sales Engineering for 5 years, ended that career selling a $25MM solution to the CEO of a fortune 100. There is no secret sauce, and it is all learnable. The key skills are interpersonal. I know its hard to do as an engineer, but most of (enterprise) sales is shutting the F up, listening, carefully listening, earning trust, and learning to navigate stakeholders and what their potential incentives are to help you.

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I think sometimes the salary market would disagree with that.

At many companies a sales engineer can make more money than a developer.

Personally I think it’s too nuanced a question to answer generally. Depending on who it is and the context “the right” person in either role can make all the difference.

To put some context here, SEs often make so much because of commissions, not due to some crazy salary.

Commission based sales seem like a good thing -- it is pay to perform. "Business co-founders" are not the same thing as SEs, because "Business co-founders" are often paid upfront (via equity) for the future promise of performing. That is not a setup with good alignment of interests.

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