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Product sales engineer vs solutions engineer

The differences between product sales engineers and solutions engineers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 4-6 years to become both a product sales engineer and a solutions engineer. Additionally, a solutions engineer has an average salary of $95,482, which is higher than the $92,735 average annual salary of a product sales engineer.

The top three skills for a product sales engineer include product sales, UL and product development. The most important skills for a solutions engineer are cloud, pre sales, and java.

Product sales engineer vs solutions engineer overview

Product Sales EngineerSolutions Engineer
Yearly salary$92,735$95,482
Hourly rate$44.58$45.90
Growth rate6%6%
Number of jobs139,762123,287
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 63%Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Average age4444
Years of experience66

What does a product sales engineer do?

Production sales engineer positions will require good judgment and business sense, resilience, and even, in an increasing capacity, foreign language skills, as well as teamwork and problem-solving skills. Those who choose this career path will be called upon to provide pre-sales technical assistance and product education, as well as make technical presentations and demonstrations. They will also be required to form liaisons with the sales team and other technical experts and solve any issues clients may have.

What does a solutions engineer do?

A solutions engineer is an individual who assists customers in identifying their computer software needs and generates customized business software solutions for them. Solutions engineers collaborate with other department engineers to create practical demonstrations of proposed solutions and showcase them to the other members of the team. They are required to test the installed software and fix programming bugs that create errors with the system. Solutions engineers also maintain customer relations by providing post-installation follow-ups.

Product sales engineer vs solutions engineer salary

Product sales engineers and solutions engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Product Sales EngineerSolutions Engineer
Average salary$92,735$95,482
Salary rangeBetween $67,000 And $126,000Between $68,000 And $134,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Francisco, CA
Highest paying stateCaliforniaCalifornia
Best paying companyGoogleByteDance
Best paying industryTechnologyStart-up

Differences between product sales engineer and solutions engineer education

There are a few differences between a product sales engineer and a solutions engineer in terms of educational background:

Product Sales EngineerSolutions Engineer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 63%Bachelor's Degree, 67%
Most common majorBusinessComputer Science
Most common collegeNorthwestern UniversityStanford University

Product sales engineer vs solutions engineer demographics

Here are the differences between product sales engineers' and solutions engineers' demographics:

Product Sales EngineerSolutions Engineer
Average age4444
Gender ratioMale, 74.8% Female, 25.2%Male, 85.1% Female, 14.9%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 1.7% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% Asian, 6.5% White, 77.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%Black or African American, 1.4% Unknown, 6.1% Hispanic or Latino, 6.9% Asian, 10.8% White, 74.4% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3%
LGBT Percentage7%7%

Differences between product sales engineer and solutions engineer duties and responsibilities

Product sales engineer example responsibilities.

  • Manage inbound domestic and international logistics and domestic shipping with respect to carrier selection, forwarding, brokering and expediting.
  • Maintain opportunity pipeline and sales forecast in CRM.
  • Stimulate customer satisfaction score (CSAT) from 55 to 85 out of 100 by CRM.
  • Close a key sale to a large OEM account that are pending for more than twelve months prior to employment.
  • Review project specifications and blueprints, determine best HVAC equipment, system design, and pricing for the RFP proposal response.
  • Maintain strong understanding of competitive HVAC equipment and gather pricing feedback from contractors and engineers.
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Solutions engineer example responsibilities.

  • Manage NDS tree for CSRS and all TCP/IP resolve via DHCP.
  • Subject matter expert in SAAS solution sets, manage services and manufacturing/logistics.
  • Develop tools to automate troubleshooting tasks such as DNS resolutions and log collection.
  • Manage a small team thereby training the team on data center and VPN technologies.
  • Manage a team of 20 resources providing functional and technical CRM support to global customers.
  • Utilize Google docs & JavaScript or VBA to develop solutions to automate data processing for operation.
  • Show more

Product sales engineer vs solutions engineer skills

Common product sales engineer skills
  • Product Sales, 19%
  • UL, 15%
  • Product Development, 6%
  • Sales Process, 6%
  • Trade Shows, 5%
  • CRM, 5%
Common solutions engineer skills
  • Cloud, 8%
  • Pre Sales, 8%
  • Java, 7%
  • Architecture, 6%
  • Customer Satisfaction, 5%
  • Infrastructure, 4%