Inside Sales Engineer vs Sales Engineer vs Specialist Sales Engineer

Different kinds of Sales Engineers exist in different companies. Some companies have Inside Sales Engineering teams commonly referred to as Sales Engineers, while others have Field Sales Engineering teams commonly referred to as Sales Engineers. Confusing, I know.  Depending on the complexity and the breadth of the products sold, some companies also top up their sales teams with specialist SEs. This blog will explain the differences between each of these SE’s tasks, job details, and requirements, which can be useful during a job hunt. Below I will tackle them one by one, and provide a summary table at the end.

Inside Sales Engineer:

Inside Sales Engineers are Sales Engineers that do not leave the office. They are usually supporting multiple Account Managers, possible 10 of them, and they have meetings back to back to back scheduled by the Account Managers. A lot of the discovery is done by the Account Manager, and then the SE is brought in to do the demo and show how the product solves the problems. All these demos and meetings are done remotely, via webex or zoom. Since the SE does not need to be at the customer site, they are usually located in their company’s office building, close to their teammates.

The Inside Sales Engineer does not have the ability to build relationships with their customers as they keep moving from one customer to the next. Very rarely do Inside SEs have ownership of their accounts since they are working with so many of them. Although they are well paid, other types of Sales Engineers, such as those who are out in the field, are usually better paid.

Sales Engineer:

Sales Engineers have many synonymous titles. Here are a few that I can think off:

• Presales Engineer
• Systems Engineer
• Solutions Engineer
• Application Engineer
• Field Engineer
• Sales Engineer
• Generalist Sales Engineers

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to stick to Sales Engineer or even SE since I’m feeling lazy.

SEs are usually out in the field, driving or flying to meet customers. They can either own all accounts within certain geography or are given named accounts. They are best off when they are close to their customers. This usually leads them to be remote workers. If the headquarters for their employer is in Silicon Valley, but their customers are in the North Eastern states, then there is no point for them to be located at HQ and would be better off somewhere in the North Eastern states.

Usually, the SE sells everything in their company’s portfolio. If the company has a broad array of product, that leads to the SE being a generalist SE. That means that the SE will not have in-depth knowledge on most of the products that they sell. The focus will mostly be on what problems the products sell, and who to contact when in-depth knowledge is needed.  

What I really like about the SE position is being able to be involved in the account planning, and with the Account Manager(s), own the accounts. Based on that, the SE can be proactive and set their own meetings to help get a sale.

Specialist SE:

Here are some other titles for the Specialist SE:

• Overlay
• Solutions Consultant
• Specialist

There might be others, but that is all I can currently think of. Specialist SEs have a lot in common with both types of SEs previously stated. They usually travel a lot since they cover a larger territory than local sales teams. It is, however, those local sales teams that own the relationships with the customers, as well as the account. Specialists SEs usually specialized in one or two products/technologies and are usually rewarded for selling these specific products. If the sale of these products leads to an upsell of other products, the specialist SEs will not get rewarded for it, whereas the local account team will.  

Specialized SEs own their schedule. They would have multiple requests coming in from different local teams, they can choose which opportunity to focus on based on their quota and what they need to hit it. When they are involved with customers, they would meet in person with the customers, but beyond that, they usually deal with the customers through the local account team.

The biggest downside about this position as I see it is that most of the opportunities come from the local sales team. Which means it is very hard to build a relationship with customers due to the distance from the customers, and the little interactions between the Specialist SE and said customers. This leads the SE to be very dependent on the local sales teams.

These are the general qualities and responsibilities of each of the three different types of Sales Engineerings. That being said, the roles and responsibilities of the SE will grow or contract with the amount of initiative shown by the SE. This means that if there is an Inside SE who enjoys building relationships, it is up to them to build these relationships with the limited touches they have with their clients. This also applies to Specialist SEs. The more responsibilities the SE takes without messing it up, the happier the Account Manager and the organization as a whole will be. It can also mean that more responsibility will be given to that SE, and possibly the opportunity to switch to a different role if the SE wants to.

The table below summarises a lot of what I talked about. If you are an SE, I would love to know where you fit in these three categories and where you see them differently.