What is a Sales Engineering Specialist (SES)?
If you’ve ever found yourself wondering… “What’s the difference between an SES and an SOM?” We get it. There’s confusion and overlap between various sales titles used at different organizations. What’s more, titles are often changing and adapting to industry trends.
The fast-growing, competitive nature of the SaaS industry has created an environment where new titles are needed to accommodate for completely new positions. What’s more, (slightly) different titles – à la Sales Development Rep vs. Business Development Rep – are created to sound more relevant, modern, and in line with company values and culture.
If you’re new to all this sales jargon, look no further! We’ve got you covered. Keep reading to find out exactly what a sales engineering specialist does, average salary for SESs, career outlook, and available SES jobs.
In SaaS sales, the acronym SES generally stands for Sales Engineering Specialist. SESs work with current and prospective clients to build custom solutions and integrations, often using API specifications and web-hooks.
Sales Engineering Specialist Job Description
In the world of SaaS, sales engineering specialists have an excellent knowledge of their company’s technology, as well as a keen understanding of the kinds of software solutions buyers are looking for.
What does a Sales Engineering Specialist do?
The main role of a sales engineering specialist is to build custom solutions and solve complex problems for prospective and current clients – whether that means building out custom integrations or troubleshooting a solution for a large, complex organization. They are typically employed in B2B companies, where they facilitate sales relationships with other organizations that may have custom tech needs.
Sales engineering specialists generally hold advanced degrees or have years of experience in the industry specific to the product or service they sell, enabling them to give in-depth explanations of the technology or science supporting their product to prospective buyers, as well as create advanced custom solutions.
Because they keep a close eye on the ever-changing needs of their business clients and industry-specific trends, SESs can act as a liaison between sales and product teams.
Sales Engineering Specialist Salary
The average sales engineering position salary, including sales engineering specialists, is $84,261 annually in the US, with an average additional $20,000 per year in commission or performance-based pay (source: Indeed).
SES Career Outlook
With the abundance of automation, software, and online marketing tools available on the market today, it may be worth wondering if sales positions will still be growing in a few years.
If you’re looking to grow your career in the sales industry, don’t worry – as the market outlook for sales engineering specialists is positive! 8% growth is projected for sales engineer opportunities through 2030, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Sales Engineering Specialist Jobs
Looking for available SES jobs? Here are a few resources to help your search:
- Sales Engineering Specialist Jobs on LinkedIn
- Sales Engineering Specialist Jobs on Indeed
- Sales Engineering Specialist Jobs on Glassdoor
Which sales role is right for me?
The right sales role for you depends on your experience and expertise, but sales can be a good industry to get your start if you are entering the job market for the first time!
Some key characteristics of great sales and customer support professionals include:
- Excellent interpersonal skills
- Great communicators
- Passion for what they are selling
- Willingness to roll up their sleeves and get the job done
- No fear calling and following-up with potential clients
- Positive attitude
- Creative and passionate about helping others
- Ability to multi-task across different platforms and forms of communication
- Ability to work well under pressure and with a team
Does this sound like you? Kixie is hiring, and we’d love to hear from you! We are looking for jovial, hard-working colleagues to share our journey as we change the landscape of business telephony.
