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The differences between sales engineers and senior sales executives 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 senior sales executive takes usually requires 6-8 years. Additionally, a senior sales executive has an average salary of $110,808, 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 senior sales executive are sales process, healthcare, and business development.
| Sales Engineer | Senior Sales Executive | |
| Yearly salary | $93,727 | $110,808 |
| Hourly rate | $45.06 | $53.27 |
| Growth rate | 6% | 5% |
| Number of jobs | 132,324 | 168,737 |
| Job satisfaction | 5 | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 79% |
| 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.
Senior sales executives are the most experienced members of a sales team. It is their responsibility to lead the customer representatives, ensuring that sales targets are met. Their job includes analyzing business trends to identify ways to improve products, ensuring customer satisfaction is met with the company products or services acquired, as well as submitting account plans and sales reports to higher management. They should also be able to timely resolve issues concerning complaints from the customer.
Sales engineers and senior sales executives have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Sales Engineer | Senior Sales Executive | |
| Average salary | $93,727 | $110,808 |
| Salary range | Between $66,000 And $132,000 | Between $59,000 And $207,000 |
| Highest paying City | Washington, DC | Boston, MA |
| Highest paying state | Virginia | Massachusetts |
| Best paying company | Meta | IBM |
| Best paying industry | Technology | Pharmaceutical |
There are a few differences between a sales engineer and a senior sales executive in terms of educational background:
| Sales Engineer | Senior Sales Executive | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 74% | Bachelor's Degree, 79% |
| Most common major | Business | Business |
| Most common college | Northwestern University | University of Southern California |
Here are the differences between sales engineers' and senior sales executives' demographics:
| Sales Engineer | Senior Sales Executive | |
| Average age | 44 | 46 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 90.1% Female, 9.9% | Male, 71.3% Female, 28.7% |
| 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% |