Explore jobs
Find specific jobs
Explore careers
Explore professions
Best companies
Explore companies
What is a senior sales engineer and how to become one
Senior sales engineers are charged with achieving a company's sales goals by working together with the sales team to produce opportunities to increase profitable sales. You will be required to prepare presentations to explain company products to customers, discuss needs and customer requirements with the sales team, and develop products to satisfy customer needs. Also, you are to boost product sales by negotiating prices, finalizing sales, making deliveries, and following up with regular customers. Furthermore, you will need to regularly represent the brand at events and trade shows, assist and recommend improved products to customers, and train junior staff or newly employed sales team members.
A bachelor's degree in marketing, business administration, engineering, or a related field is needed for this job. You must also have excellent leadership, communication, and problem-solving skills. In addition, you must be able to multitask and possess exceptional presentation skills. Senior sales engineers earn $84,403 per year or $40.58 per hour.
Avg. Salary $116,026
Avg. Salary $59,228
Growth rate 6%
Growth rate 0.3%
American Indian and Alaska Native 0.33%
Asian 7.09%
Black or African American 1.59%
Hispanic or Latino 7.64%
Unknown 6.16%
White 77.18%
Genderfemale 8.47%
male 91.53%
Age - 44American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%
Asian 7.00%
Black or African American 14.00%
Hispanic or Latino 19.00%
White 57.00%
Genderfemale 47.00%
male 53.00%
Age - 44Stress level is high
7.1 - high
Complexity level is advanced
7 - challenging
Work life balance is poor
6.4 - fair
Senior sales engineer career paths
Key steps to become a senior sales engineer
Explore senior sales engineer education requirements
Start to develop specific senior sales engineer skills
Skills Percentages Pre Sales 8.09% Cloud 6.48% Product Demonstrations 5.83% Product Management 5.45% Technical Expertise 4.31% Complete relevant senior sales engineer training and internships
Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New senior sales engineers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a senior sales engineer based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real senior sales engineer resumes.Research senior sales engineer duties and responsibilities
- Create tools to manage customer projects, such as standardized proposals, technical templates, and SQL tracking database.
- Provide pre-sales, complex technical solutions for client voice/data applications with sales team.
- Coordinate all pre-sales support resources including product development, engineering, and technical support.
- Perform equipment configuration of DSLAM equipment, routers, and switches.
Get senior sales engineer experience
Generally, it takes 4-6 years to become a senior sales engineer. The most common roles before becoming a senior sales engineer include sales engineer, systems engineer team lead and senior systems engineer.Prepare your senior sales engineer resume
When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your senior sales engineer resume.
You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a senior sales engineer resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.
Choose from 10+ customizable senior sales engineer resume templates
Build a professional senior sales engineer resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your senior sales engineer resume.
Apply for senior sales engineer jobs
Now it's time to start searching for a senior sales engineer job. Consider the tips below for a successful job search:
- Browse job boards for relevant postings
- Consult your professional network
- Reach out to companies you're interested in working for directly
- Watch out for job scams
How did you land your first senior sales engineer job
Are you a senior sales engineer?
Share your story for a free salary report.
Average senior sales engineer salary
The average senior sales engineer salary in the United States is $116,026 per year or $56 per hour. Senior sales engineer salaries range between $86,000 and $154,000 per year.
What am I worth?
How do senior sales engineers rate their job?
Senior sales engineer reviews
IF you have enough experience you get to walk around different manufacturing plants and tell them how you solution will impact their bottom line. every day is different.
Cold Call is pretty bad because your success rate is 1-2%. Surprises when a competitor sells to a company you did not know about and your marketing folks cant help find them.
Requires many aspect to be combine in order to fulfill the job. business and technical knowledge are required in order to be successful pre sales engineer.
no general certification like PMP exists for pre sales engineer, they are all specified for one product. requires an absurd amount of concentration required for proposals writing if you don't have the adequate tools to help.
Active Networking & Security Solutions
Presales tasks are usually working under Pressure, no enough time to improve skills
Updated January 8, 2025
