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Comment by somat | Hacker News Reader

The guy was listed as a "sales engineer" which on first glance is the worst sort of oxymoron, everybody knows engineers make terrible salesmen[1]. But perhaps it could work, just take your sleaziest engineer, put them through an intensive indoctrination in chicanery and lies and you get a salesman who almost knows what he is talking about.

1. How do you know if the guy trying to sell you something is the engineer. They will tell you in excruciating detail every flaw and design mistake in the thing and how they should have designed it better. Savor this moment, look past the terrible sales pitch and buy from them, for you have been gifted that elusive thing, the engineer.

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My dad was such an engineer doing sales, of industrial components. Grew up on a farm, engineering degree, very honest type churchgoer and family man, and in his spare time DIY projects like a classic engineer type. I'm sure he'd know when something would or wouldn't work, and would candidly tell the customer about any problems or risks. (In this case, maybe honest as much as an engineer personally bothered by design flaws.)

I've also seen a different kind of engineer in sales, where they're paired long-term with salespeople. They sit in on sales meetings as a technical expert, and also do things like customizations and integrations. I suppose the presence of the salesperson helps suppress the engineer's inclination to start riffing on every flaw, but the pairing retains the engineer ability to help the customer be successful with the product.

Yeah, I am a bit rough on sales, but it is critical to doing business. And a good saleman is a wonderful find, talking with someone who is knowledgeable and honest about the product is great.

You're littering via middle school group stereotypes for professions.

You're walking it back a bit by saying you're a bit rough on sales, but what you actually wrote is engineers are bad at sales.

Sales engineer is a well-populated role, and they do their jobs as expected.

On average, an engineer will be worse at sales than a "pure salesman", but that's simply specialization in action. Can't get better at what you don't have an opportunity to practice. We all can do pretty much whatever we want if we put our minds to it.

Sales engineers are very common if you are selling complex industrial products. At a certain point of complexity, selling a product and designing its integration with the customer kind of bridge. You need a deep understanding of the product and process involved to be able to sell it.

I've worked with a few sales engineers by now because I'm the person they try to sell to. I always saw sales engineers as the result of companies realizing that by now they often have to deliver sales pitches to engineers and not just manages managers and procurement folks.

In my case, that's exactly what they need. Sales people creep me out and make me want to hide under my weighted blanket. Sales engineers are the blessing that makes sales calls informative and bearable. I don't know how companies find and recruit them, but they make it happen and I'm very happy they do.

In software we may call them euphemisms like "solutions architects" or "devrel engineers", but sales engineers have always existed. They aren't necessarily the frontline of the sales department, but someone has to go onto the customer site and explain to the customer's engineers exactly how their shiny new purchase is going to integrate into their existing systems and workflows...

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