Should I transition to a tech sales job? Thoughts on risk vs reward? I am 34 yo, married with a baby incoming. I work at Google Cloud in solutions engineering (I help develop quantitative business cases with sales teams for customers). My cash base + bonus is $220k (going to ignore equity). I have an MBA from the University of Chicago, not that it matters much in sales. I have always been in a consulting role but I think I can make more in sales. I have a competitive personality and I am bored.

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Yeah you’re right about the degree not meaning squat in sales. There are high school grads running circles around MBA’s!

If you’re ready to eat a sh*t sandwich for breakfast, lunch and dinner in exchange for a feast in the future, then tech sales is for you. It’s basically gonna be the anthesis of a cushy consulting job.

Can you make more money in tech sales. Oh absolutely! But it’s gonna be an uphill grind against people that have been doing this for 10+ years.

And here’s the thing: tech sales is going to lead to tech sales management jobs in the future. Consulting, sky is the limit. Management, executive positions, research, teaching, etc.

Unless you wanna be a tech salesman for the foreseeable future or tech sales manager, it’s probably not for you. Just giving you the big picture.

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Jr sales kid trying to school me on sales 😂 - cool story bro…

Have you considered moving to a different company? With your background you should be closer to 300 OTE as an SE.

Sales could very well be worth it though, esp at google. They’re pretty generous with your ramp period and commission draw. You could switch roles, ramp up, go on leave and come back and make almost all of your new OTE. And since you’re in an SE role now you can always go back if you want to.

Anecdotally I see a lot of SEs that go into sales plan it so they have the best patch and they’ll crush numbers for a year or two and go into leadership

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What technical knowledge do you need to get the SE role at Google? I’m at blackbaud and looking to make a shift. Also working on my evening MBA at Emory..

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That sounds exactly like what I’m looking for in my next role. Do you mind if I DM you to keep in touch?

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Take a sales job at Google (lovey dovey don't fly at start-ups), learn the ropes and get at least 18 months of sales experience on your CV. THEN start looking.

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me to help with the children

What made you want to leave your current company? (If not just putting it out for discussion)

Well if I went into sales it would be best to stick with Google Cloud (since I know the tech and Google is a known brand). That said, I am passively taking interviews for similar but elevated roles at smaller tech companies. Google is such a big org, you don’t feel like you are making an impact. At my prior company I was much more involved in real decision making on the GTM front. Google culture is sort of lazy, lots and lots of fat / overlapping roles / too many cooks in the kitchen. In general, people aren’t “get shit done” kind of people. Much more lovely dovey culture, which works for some but I miss the aggressive work ethic and attitude from my prior company. Google has lots of smart people, amazing technology to learn about and provide to customers, but the culture does inspire me at all.

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That’s a low OTE for an SE at Google. What level are you? How come you have a bonus structure instead of commission?

Never mind - re-read and sounds like you’re post sales consulting. I’d move to presales SE over an AE role.

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