Plan a career in IT: goal - £100k PA.

El Pew said:
That would be an incorrect presumption in our case at least, although we usually start junior SEs at the lower end of the market before trusting them to move up to FTSE 100 clients.
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But you just mentioned a 2-3 year training program, so I'm not sure they really are inexperienced after that to be fair! Unless you're sending them out to clients earlier on as part of that program?

It would still be iffy at the vendor I worked for, we really needed people with domain knowledge too and the people in that role tended to have several years of experience... like worked as an FX sales trader in different banks for over a decade, then worked as a consultant doing implementations... and then moved to pre-sales consultant. You can't just get a PE teacher (even after 2 years of training) to go to some bank willing to spend XX million and have them field a range of questions, at least not for something specific to the domain (perhaps you can for some more general tech product sold to large organisations across various industries). It tended to be more people recruited internally from technical account management roles or consultant roles, people who had been interacting with end users and management at existing clients for years already.
 
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dowie said:
Ironically though I do wonder if kitkat is talking about something along those lines, salesforce was one of thing things I suspected, commodified software from a big company that, while configurable, probably doesn't have the same options for customisation (as in specific code changes for clients) as smaller vendors offering more bespoke stuff at a high ticket price.
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You can declaratively or programmatically customise the hell out of it if you want to. Salesforce has its own code language (Apex) which is similar in structure to Java.
 
I’ve dealt with dozens of these people over the years, I’m impressed they get paid so much! I know the niche bunch (e.g. BRS, Finbourne) got a chunk but not the more generic ones - as I’d assumed would be a due to the lack of channel knowledge they have.
 
Lopéz said:
You can declaratively or programmatically customise the hell out of it if you want to. Salesforce has its own code language (Apex) which is similar in structure to Java.
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That's not what I'm referring to though, that's still configuring it on the client side rather than a fundamental change made to the actual product itself (in some cases a branched-out custom version for a specific client... you may have version 3.4 of the software as the current but [some-bank] is on 3.2G and needs additional work on the custom parts to bring them up to 3.4) and the more standardised/commoditised your product is the less likely you're going to be having situations where any given SE/pre-sales person is speaking directly with the dev team for a particular part of a product and getting them to spec up a change, come up with an estimate etc.. and add it onto the potential bill for the client.

As an extreme example, you don't typically have some random company getting Microsoft themselves to implement a bunch of code changes specific to the version of Excel they're using... but at the other end of the spectrum if you've got a few dozen customers and they're each paying X million a year + XX million upfront etc.. then they can say "Hey you don't do X, can this be added" and your pre-sales guy can offer an opinion on whether it's feasible (or better still you have the product manager join the call/fly out for the pitch) and that gets added on for XXXk.
 
dowie said:
But you just mentioned a 2-3 year training program, so I'm not sure they really are inexperienced after that to be fair! Unless you're sending them out to clients earlier on as part of that program?

It would still be iffy at the vendor I worked for, we really needed people with domain knowledge too and the people in that role tended to have several years of experience... like worked as an FX sales trader in different banks for over a decade, then worked as a consultant doing implementations... and then moved to pre-sales consultant. You can't just get a PE teacher (even after 2 years of training) to go to some bank willing to spend XX million and have them field a range of questions, at least not for something specific to the domain (perhaps you can for some more general tech product sold to large organisations across various industries). It tended to be more people recruited internally from technical account management roles or consultant roles, people who had been interacting with end users and management at existing clients for years already.
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The 2-3 year training program is to get the "full" SE as opposed to junior/associate, and it involves getting them in front of customers as soon as practicable. They won't be locked in a classroom for years, they will shadow another SE and be expected to be taking their own meetings within 6 months at the latest, with support as appropriate. And as I said we wouldn't send them in front of large important customers like a FTSE 100 bank until they've built up some experience with smaller customers and we know we can trust them.
 
dowie said:
Ironically though I do wonder if kitkat is talking about something along those lines, salesforce was one of thing things I suspected, commodified software from a big company that, while configurable, probably doesn't have the same options for customisation (as in specific code changes for clients) as smaller vendors offering more bespoke stuff at a high ticket price.

Also, successful personal trainers have a sales aspect to their job and competent PE teachers have to have people skills both could probably work in some form of sales/account management type role, similarly, former teachers can do well as standup comedians too.

So I guess someone who is confident/has high EQ but also keen and is at least smart enough to go through some X week "certification" in some commodified software solution perhaps can act as a "sales engineer".

Whereas a large, complex solution perhaps in say banking/finance requires pre-sales/SE types who not only know how to use the various aspects of the software as different types of users - traders, risk managers, operations etc. but also configure them, also have domain knowledge and also be familiar with/in touch with development/product management re: possible additional code changes/enhancements required to fit a client's requirements.
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Not salesforce but a saas based company in the identity space.

Our standard SEs are the first point of contact for prospects and will field what they can but when they need specialist support they will bring in a more senior/specialist resource eg architect (like me) or developer specialist etc.

For junior SEs they start supporting the lead SE on an opp, eg help building demos and presentations and for the first several months they are basically an extra pair of hands and shadow more senior colleagues.

Over time they will move to leading emerging and commercial prospects where the use cases are fairly trivial and the customer don’t have deep SME questions that need answering.

Then over the years move to corporate, enterprise and then strategic.
 
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kitkat9933 said:
Not salesforce but a saas based company in the identity space.
[...]

Over time they will move to leading emerging and commercial prospects where the use cases are fairly trivial and the customer don’t have deep SME questions that need answering.
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That makes sense, if it is more generic in terms of industry (of the customers) and there are standard/less complicated cases you can sell to then I can certainly see why you'd really mostly want to emphasize the sales skills or just general high EQ/good interpersonal skills above other things (given some minimum competency/ability to pick up the technical side).
 
tom_e said:
This place got me my current position which was a massive step up at the time.
It's not what you know :cry:
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Well I think the most important thing is a lot of the good opportunities out there are unknown.

Ask someone on the street what a sales engineer / solutions architect is and they would have no idea the career opportunities. I found out by accident.

It’s important to promote these lesser known career options to people.
 
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kitkat9933 said:
Ask someone on the street what a sales engineer / solutions architect is and they would have no idea the career opportunities. I found out by accident.
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Same deal with stuff like "salesforce consultant" and "SAP consultant" etc.

One of my mates and one of his other mates were trying to help a friend of theirs into a better-paid job, they're both IT-related contractors albeit what they do has a higher barrier to entry and/or requires specific experience (post-grad quals desired in the case of one and professional quals in the case of the other)... their friend was bemoaning his situation and they suggested becoming a salesforce consultant, he was skeptical as he had no relevant experience AFAIK but a few years later he's a contractor earning a daily rate that's not too shabby at all.
 
This is true
kitkat9933 said:
Well i thick the most important thing is a lot of the good opportunities out there are unknown.
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I was offered a job with Sky Sports back when I was doing my A Levels. It was in their production trailers at sports events. Like a lorry trailer with all the screens in. You have the producer asking for shots. You are in charge of a camera and a bank of 10 clips. You can clip anything that looks like it was interesting and bank it to a slot. If the producer asks for your angle, you shout you have it or don't and send it up to the main feed from your bank.

This was through a family friend as all those jobs were. They never advertised. They paid 300 GBP a day and travel, acommodation and food was paid for. You could pick your events and people used to fly all over to the all different sporting events in the world.

I thought my A levels, which were a pile of ***** and dropped out of uni anyway, were important, but should have jumped at it lol
 
randomshenans said:
Go on dude! The OcUK collective bringing each other up!
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Well it's not really a find me a job thread it's more anecdotes and seemingly rare experiences within a couple of companies.

I could tell you about the lady who got 3 promotions in two years (friendly with the bosses ;)) or the 6ft 5 rugby player who was really good looking given a chance by a lady he knew and got a double promotion despite not excelling in any job he'd done in the business.
 
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< ^ Experienced cyber SE here recently made redundant due to region being shut down and looking for next role.

Just leaving that one there for anyone who might be interested :cry:
 
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Ev0 said:
< ^ Experienced cyber SE here recently made redundant due to region being shut down and looking for next role.

Just leaving that one there for anyone who might be interested :cry:
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You should be able to command £200k+ apparently!
 
We have a 'Snowmaker' programme which takes someone with the right basic skills (i.e. data savvy, SQL, preferably a bit of Python too) and qualities (i.e. self-starter, ability to learn quickly, good communication) to a Sales Engineer in 5 months. Won't be on £100k+ at that point for sure, but a great entry point into Sales Engineering, and plenty of opportunity for growth + progression. Not sure that there are any openings at the moment, but you can register interest at https://careers.*********.com/us/en/snowmaker

There are also a few Sales Engineering roles open too. Not so many in UK/EMEA at the moment as hiring has slowed down a bit, but a few : https://careers.*********.com/us/en/search-results?keywords=sales engineer. Note that not all SE positions are necessarily filled by established Sales Engineers. Could be people coming from non-SE consulting or Professional Services roles as long as the skillset is right.

** edit** Stupid forum filter - the urls should obviously be snow-flake without the hyphen :D
 
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