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The differences between sales engineers and regional sales managers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. While it typically takes 4-6 years to become a sales engineer, becoming a regional sales manager takes usually requires 6-8 years. Additionally, a sales engineer has an average salary of $93,727, which is higher than the $82,980 average annual salary of a regional sales manager.
The top three skills for a sales engineer include pre sales, customer service and sales process. The most important skills for a regional sales manager are regional sales, customer satisfaction, and sales process.
| Sales Engineer | Regional Sales Manager | |
| Yearly salary | $93,727 | $82,980 |
| Hourly rate | $45.06 | $39.89 |
| Growth rate | 6% | 5% |
| Number of jobs | 132,324 | 121,934 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 77% |
| Average age | 44 | 46 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 8 |
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.
A regional sales manager is responsible for monitoring the sales and distribution of goods and services within a specific region. Duties of a regional sales manager also include analyzing expenses and cost estimates, ensuring that operations meet budget goals with the highest quality, researching current market trends for sales performance development, providing sales training, and presenting sales reports. A regional sales manager must have strong leadership and decision-making skills to enforce policies and procedures to boost operations performance.
Sales engineers and regional sales managers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Sales Engineer | Regional Sales Manager | |
| Average salary | $93,727 | $82,980 |
| Salary range | Between $66,000 And $132,000 | Between $53,000 And $129,000 |
| Highest paying City | Washington, DC | San Francisco, CA |
| Highest paying state | Virginia | Washington |
| Best paying company | Meta | Meta |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Technology |
There are a few differences between a sales engineer and a regional sales manager in terms of educational background:
| Sales Engineer | Regional Sales Manager | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 77% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | University of Southern California |
Here are the differences between sales engineers' and regional sales managers' demographics:
| Sales Engineer | Regional Sales Manager | |
| Average age | 44 | 46 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 90.1% Female, 9.9% | Male, 81.5% Female, 18.5% |
| 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, 3.2% Unknown, 4.4% Hispanic or Latino, 9.8% Asian, 4.1% White, 78.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.2% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |