Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between product specialists and sales 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 specialist and a sales engineer. Additionally, a sales engineer has an average salary of $93,727, which is higher than the $85,932 average annual salary of a product specialist.
The top three skills for a product specialist include customer service, product knowledge and sales floor. The most important skills for a sales engineer are pre sales, customer service, and sales process.
| Product Specialist | Sales Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $85,932 | $93,727 |
| Hourly rate | $41.31 | $45.06 |
| Growth rate | 19% | 6% |
| Number of jobs | 103,863 | 132,324 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | 5 |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 64% | Bachelor's Degree, 74% |
| Average age | 37 | 44 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
A product specialist is required to have excellent knowledge about a product and work with a business unit to ensure excellent product delivery. Product specialists perform product demonstrations to customers and other stakeholders and assist in their promotions and product releases. To gain increased revenue, product specialists must be able to identify new market opportunities. They are required to conduct product and sales training for the marketing team. They must also provide reports about their product-related activities to the management.
A sales engineer is responsible for assisting customers with their technical equipment and advanced scientific product needs. Sales engineers must have excellent knowledge of the scientific processes and component functions of the products they're selling to deliver presentations and orient the customers. Sales engineers' duties also include troubleshooting, identifying product defects, and upgrading systems for better optimization. They are also responsible for analyzing cost estimates documents, performing adjustments as needed, process payments, arranging deliveries, and settling customers' complaints by replacing damaged items or doing refunds.
Product specialists and sales engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Product Specialist | Sales Engineer | |
| Average salary | $85,932 | $93,727 |
| Salary range | Between $56,000 And $130,000 | Between $66,000 And $132,000 |
| Highest paying City | San Bruno, CA | Washington, DC |
| Highest paying state | California | Virginia |
| Best paying company | ByteDance | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Technology |
There are a few differences between a product specialist and a sales engineer in terms of educational background:
| Product Specialist | Sales Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 64% | Bachelor's Degree, 74% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | University of Georgia | Northwestern University |
Here are the differences between product specialists' and sales engineers' demographics:
| Product Specialist | Sales Engineer | |
| Average age | 37 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 59.8% Female, 40.2% | Male, 90.1% Female, 9.9% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 5.2% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 12.5% Asian, 10.6% White, 66.6% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.1% | Black or African American, 1.7% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% Asian, 7.1% White, 76.8% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% |
| LGBT Percentage | 10% | 7% |