BACK IN THE LATE NINETIES, I could depend on at least one conference every week of the following type: a successful engineer or IT person—singled out for superior ‘people’ skills and enthusiasm—was being pursued by the sales department for a sales engineer position. This person would come and see me (the HR guy) on advice about whether the career change would help or harm his career.

“Sure,” he’d say, “I can make more money, but I’ll also lose my technical edge. What if I want to get back into development work? Maybe no one will hire me. What if I don’t like sales, or I’m no good at it?” These concerns were very real, because lots of technical managers perceive that a person once marked as a sales type couldn’t be a true technologist anymore.

Nowadays, technologists—looking at the slow growth of technology jobs and at their own job security—are asking, “Should I move into technical sales now?” Here’s my advice to people in this decision mode.

Five years ago, you faced a real crossroads when deciding whether to move into a sales or marketing role. Truly, there were leaders who might have had difficulty accepting you back into a true technology position after you’d spend time in sales. Why? Well, here are three good reasons:
• They’d fear—perhaps with justification—that you would have lost some ground with emerging technology.
• They’d look at your higher earning in a sales capacity (this is not always the case, but it’s not uncommon either) and wonder whether you could be happy again without those bonuses, or
• They’d wonder why you wanted to come back into the technology arena—were you unsuccessful at sales? What went wrong?

Interestingly, I think that the depressed (okay, recessed) economy works in your favor if you’re considering an engineering-to-sales migration. Employers understand today that people are making more drastic moves to stay employed and to keep their skills sharp. If it turns out that you take a sales position now and want to head back into a development team two years from now, most employers and individual managers will understand the thought process that you’re experiencing now, and won’t hold it against you.

But what about the job itself—how will a lifelong product guy do in a sales engineer or technical marketing role? If you’ve been told that you have strong communication skills or are especially good with clients, these are huge pluses. If you’ve sometimes felt that you’d like to do more with the product once it’s in the customer’s shop, you might be a natural at sales. But, if customer interaction turns you off or if you like to spend solid days in front of your computer, think again—there’s no point in moving into an ‘outside’ role if you’re not going to be happy and successful there.

The days of enormous premiums for sales engineers (vs. development or test engineers) are mostly gone. But you may still find that companies—even your own—will pay more for a traveling sales engineer position or include customer-satisfaction metrics in the compensation scheme.

One cultural hurdle that I often hear about from new sales engineers is the confidentiality factor. “Back in my development team, of course we could talk about anything with each other,” said one former coder. “If something in the product wasn’t working, we’d sit and brainstorm about the problem.” When your job requires mostly customer interaction, you may feel muzzled when talking about product issues. You may feel that your conversation has to stay in some zone of acceptable banter, even though your contacts are other engineers, and stay away from any area that might make your employer look bad or the product look less than wonderful. While you can understand why companies have these prohibitions, some hardcore technology people really chafe under them.

Another issue, of course, is travel. Once you go ‘outside,’ it’s the rare sales engineer who doesn’t spend a lot of time on the road. If you are going to be doing a lot of traveling, check out your company’s travel policy. Depending on the company’s travel program, your whole sales-premium (the compensation boost you get from moving into a customer-facing role) could go up in smoke when you consider extra expenses like dry cleaning, daycare, or expensive hotel meals if the company has a daily maximum.

If you’re considering a move like this, talk to several of your company’s sales engineers to get the scoop on life outside the cubicle. If the opportunity is with your current employer, ask if you can ‘shadow’ one of these people for a trip or two. The learning will be incredible. (It’s a good idea to do this every now and then, even if you aren’t the least bit interested in getting out of product development.)

Some companies provide a lot of training to new customer-care people, while others use a ‘sink or swim’ approach. If your company doesn’t have in-house training, ask for permission to attend an outside seminar on sales and customer-management skills. If there’s a bonus plan for the position you’re considering, get as many details as you can on the structure of the bonus program, who decides on your bonus, and when the bonus is paid out. Is it dependent on company results, department results, or your own accomplishments? Don’t wait to be surprised—get the details now, in writing if you can.

The good news is that this is a great time to move into an outside role if you’ve ever been inclined to do so. Sales people have never had as much leeway and respect in many companies as they have right now, when not just particular products but whole companies are riding on the success of the sales team vs. competitors. So don’t be afraid of the leap—just be sure to do your due diligence up front.