Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
The differences between senior pre-sales engineers and sales support 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 senior pre-sales engineer and a sales support engineer. Additionally, a senior pre-sales engineer has an average salary of $115,532, which is higher than the $78,335 average annual salary of a sales support engineer.
The top three skills for a senior pre-sales engineer include pre sales, technical liaison and sales process. The most important skills for a sales support engineer are CRM, product line, and sales process.
| Senior Pre-Sales Engineer | Sales Support Engineer | |
| Yearly salary | $115,532 | $78,335 |
| Hourly rate | $55.54 | $37.66 |
| Growth rate | 6% | 6% |
| Number of jobs | 23,387 | 118,608 |
| Job satisfaction | - | - |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 75% | Bachelor's Degree, 66% |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Years of experience | 6 | 6 |
A senior pre-sales engineer is the technical pillar of sales in an organization. They employ their business acumen and leadership in designing, proposing, demonstrating, and marketing business values to customers. Their responsibilities include delivering technical demos and presentations with a special focus on the consumer's business requirements, converting prospects to customers and customers to product evangelists, building a win-win relationship with customers and internal departments, creating technical architecture designs, assisting sales qualification, and presenting workshops.
A sales support engineer assists customers by dealing with complex issues and concerns, resolving them using their technical expertise. They usually communicate with customers using calls and correspondence, and through this, they also develop and deliver sales proposals, answer inquiries, and provide price quotes. Moreover, a sales support engineer also works to assist sales teams by conducting research and analyses to develop procedures that will optimize operations, producing data and guidelines, and creating sales strategies for profit growth.
Senior pre-sales engineers and sales support engineers have different pay scales, as shown below.
| Senior Pre-Sales Engineer | Sales Support Engineer | |
| Average salary | $115,532 | $78,335 |
| Salary range | Between $87,000 And $152,000 | Between $52,000 And $116,000 |
| Highest paying City | - | Fort Collins, CO |
| Highest paying state | - | Virginia |
| Best paying company | - | Agilent Technologies |
| Best paying industry | - | Energy |
There are a few differences between a senior pre-sales engineer and a sales support engineer in terms of educational background:
| Senior Pre-Sales Engineer | Sales Support Engineer | |
| Most common degree | Bachelor's Degree, 75% | Bachelor's Degree, 66% |
| Most common major | Computer Science | Electrical Engineering |
| Most common college | Stanford University | Stanford University |
Here are the differences between senior pre-sales engineers' and sales support engineers' demographics:
| Senior Pre-Sales Engineer | Sales Support Engineer | |
| Average age | 44 | 44 |
| Gender ratio | Male, 93.6% Female, 6.4% | Male, 84.8% Female, 15.2% |
| Race ratio | Black or African American, 1.6% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 7.9% Asian, 5.8% White, 78.1% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% | Black or African American, 1.6% Unknown, 6.2% Hispanic or Latino, 8.0% Asian, 8.2% White, 75.7% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.3% |
| LGBT Percentage | 7% | 7% |