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The differences between sales engineers and professional services 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 sales engineer and a professional services engineer. Additionally, a professional services engineer has an average salary of $98,091, which is higher than the $93,727 average annual salary of a sales engineer.
The top three skills for a sales engineer include pre sales, customer service and sales process. The most important skills for a professional services engineer are customer service, professional services, and java.
| Sales Engineer | Professional Services Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $93,727 | $98,091 |
| Hourly rate | $45.06 | $47.16 |
| Growth rate | 6% | 6% |
| Number of jobs | 132,324 | 114,048 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 59% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
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.
Professional Services Engineers are employees who represent their company in their client's work environment. They are usually software engineers or any other information technology-related engineers. They are expected to be familiar with company's products. Professional Services Engineers act as the bridge between the company and the client. They are usually assigned to be on-site at the client's office to act as the technical representative of the company. As such, they do the installing, setting up, managing, troubleshooting, maintaining, and repairing the company's software for the client. They may also help out in product training and maximizing the user experience.
Sales engineers and professional services engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Sales Engineer | Professional Services Engineer | |
| Average salary | $93,727 | $98,091 |
| Salary range | Between $66,000 And $132,000 | Between $64,000 And $149,000 |
| Highest paying City | Washington, DC | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Virginia | Virginia |
| Best paying company | Meta | Gracenote |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Technology |
There are a few differences between a sales engineer and a professional services engineer in terms of educational background:
| Sales Engineer | Professional Services Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 59% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between sales engineers' and professional services engineers' demographics:
| Sales Engineer | Professional Services Engineer | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 90.1% Female, 9.9% | Male, 57.9% Female, 42.1% |
| Race ratio | 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% | Black or African American, 1.7% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% Asian, 5.8% White, 78.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |