#264 StartUp Pre Sales Engineering and Trends from a Recruiting Consultant

Notes:

Before the infamous tech layoffs of 2022 and 2023, there was actually a boom in VC funding for tech startups, particularly before 2021, which drove many companies to hunt for talent. Today, funding is more tricky, which makes finding a job more challenging.

If you are an SE looking for a role in a startup, this episode is for you. We bring in Justin Ferber, Senior Consultant at The Search Experience, a recruitment consultancy specializing in building go-to-market (GTM) teams for tech startups, to talk about what startups are looking for from SEs, how they hire talent, and how they prioritize what talents to bring in.

Key Takeaways:

How one becomes a recruiter
Why recruitment is like sales
Different forms of recruitment
How companies prioritize who they hire first
When companies decide to hire SEs
Why startups struggle to get funding today
The difficulty of finding good SEs today
Skills and characteristics that companies are looking for from SEs
Why joining a startup as the first SE is a bad idea
The ideal number of years of experience that companies require from SEs
How to gain experience to transition to a role at a startup
The length of startup interview processes
How startups mitigate risks in talent acquisition

Quotes:

“If I were an SE I would feel pretty good about my specialty because I think there’s a bit of supply and demand. It’s a niche unique skill set to have that blend of technical and sales acumen. We always see ups and downs in the market. But I think from a long-term career perspective, it’s a great place to be, and there will always be demand for that particular blend of skills.” — Justin Ferber

“Typically, what I see companies looking for is an engineer who can sell…. Usually, companies are looking for someone who started their career as an engineer and has a really robust technical understanding of their product to be able to capture the value proposition for their buyers, which are oftentimes going to be technical personas as well. And then that coupled with being able to sell an enterprise-type product and convey value.” — Justin Ferber

“If you’re at a larger company and looking to join a startup, seek out what needs to be done at your company and spearhead something.” — Justin Ferber

“The best SEs are not necessarily the best engineers. They don’t have to be the best engineers, but they know enough to be able to really engage in a meaningful way with technical buyers that they’re presenting to. And then I often see that the best SEs are just killer salespeople that could probably be account executives if they wanted to.” — Justin Ferber