One of the first blogs I published back in 2018 was called “The Confusing Job titles in Sales”, and I’ve learned so much more since then about PreSales and Sales Engineering specifically, and don’t worry, it’s gotten even more confusing.

Back then I had 5 titles, and now we have so many more.

Now why is it important to know these titles, well simply put, when you’re looking for a new job, we wouldn’t want to skip a role just because we searched for the incorrect title.

PreSales Function

1- Sales Engineering:

2- Presales Engineer

3- System Engineer → Could mean something else

4- Customer Engineer (Google)

5- Application Engineer (legacy Hardware Companies)

6- Solution Architect → This Could mean post sales

7- Solution Consultant

8- Solution Engineer

All of these point to a person, aka human being, whose job is to help understand their customer’s business problem and then offer a solution to their customers. In the previous blog, I said the following:

Although that is somewhat true, I prefer my definition. We are not helpers anymore. We are our own entity and our own job. It’s like saying Rob Gronkowski’s job is to help Tom Brady win. It’s not. Rob’s job is to get open, Tom’s job is to pass him the ball, and together they win.

Now a couple of these titles could mean things other than sales engineering as well.

Systems Engineering is a term used for an R&D Engineer who helps build systems, or in their case, engineer systems. Hence “Systems Engineer”. I never liked this term for a Sales Engineering role as I always had to translate what that meant to the customer and they always looked disappointed that I’ve stolen that name from what they consider an actual engineer!

Also, a Solution Architect could be someone who has a post-sales role. When I was in Network Design, a Solution Architect was a title given to those seniors (by rank, not age) among us who take on the most complicated of networks. On the other hand, this is what AWS and other companies call their Sales Engineers.

The bottom line is to look at the job descriptions to learn better about the role.

If you want to know more about what the role of the SE does, check out this post. 

Sales:

When I first interviewed for an SE role, I was asked, “what would you do if your RSM said something that was false?” You could see the hamster wheel in my head turning since I had no idea what an RSM was.

I got the job, despite that, but I still didn’t know what that meant.

And in order for you to avoid the gear spinning that I had to go through, here are a few more titles, this time for salespeople. Although the titles are different, their role is pretty much similar, or the differences are minuscule. 

Regional Sales Manager: This was the title of the first salesperson that I worked with.

Account Manager: Means salesperson. In some companies, this means a salesperson who takes care of existing accounts, in others this means that this person takes care of all accounts.

Account Executive: A more prestigious title for someone who does the same exact thing as other titles listed above. One difference is that this person may be given larger strategic accounts to manage.

Salesperson: Not really a title, but if you boil it down, this is what all the previous titles mean

Field Engineer – Don’t ask me why, but I’ve also seen this. I don’t like it, feels like I’m being lied to, so don’t use it!

If you are curious about the sales role and are thinking of transitioning, check out this blog post

Post – Sales

This becomes fun as not only there are different titles here, but the titles also imply different roles.

Field Service Engineer (FSE): Can be considered the first line of support, and can work based on the Account Team’s needs. A question comes in from a specific set of customers, the FSE will try to help, whether the customer has purchased support or not, although this may differ from one organization to another.

Professional Services Engineer, Implementations Engineer: These are paid services where an engineer works directly with the customer to help them implement what they purchased, and also provide training.

Resident Engineer: Someone who lives on site and their job is to keep the customer up and running with whatever product/service they purchased from the company.

Solution Architect: See above

Customer Success: Somewhat of a newer role. Their job is to take over from the Sales team after the purchase, make sure the customer adopts the solution and enable them to use it in order for the customer to renew the subscription.

Technical Account Manager: Somewhat like an FSE, but used mainly on strategic or paid customers. The FSE is available for anyone the sales team deems worthy of assistance.

I hope this post provides some clarity.

Which title do you like best?

If you need help transitioning from one of these post-sales roles or any other role into sales engineering, check out the SE Hotline as we are here to help.