Top tier cloud companies: Google, Microsoft, Amazon and top tier startups: Snowflake, Databricks, Confluent, Splunk etc. etc. etc. all pay their field sales reps at minimum 150k base and another 150k in commission for 100% (hit 200% and get 300k in commission). Add in 40k cash signing + 100k stock over 4 years, you're easily at 300k/yr.
And it's easy to get there. No top tier school needed. Grind as an SDR for 1-2 years and you can get promoted into the field. These companies actually prefer young people versus old school boomers too.
Oh, and you're only working 40 hours per week, max, probably 20 hrs per week with Covid and only Zoom meetings.
Why are you killing yourself to grind 80 hours a week for less pay than the average Chad salesman at AWS/GCP/MS?
edit: source on that pay: compgauge.com (get access to the compgauge mastersheet)
From my understanding, $300k is for enterprise reps and you aren’t selling enterprise after 2 years as an SDR. You are right though you can make an awesome living but that can be said for sales in general.
You certainly can be at several companies, big and small. If you're a rockstar SDR, they put you in the field, enterprise or SMB. Doesn't matter.
Sales is great for people that can do and like sales. I personally hate sales and it doesn’t really jive with my personality, unless the product is selling itself and flying off the shelves.
sales it no longer your idea of car salesman. It's pitching similar to consulting which requires a ton of research and that's why the pay is similar to consulting gigs and even more
What happens if you aren't able to sell? DO you think these companies will pay you a 150kbase from the kindness of their hearts?
thats why you go sell for one of the companies above where the products sell themselves...
Nothing is that easy. What is the point of this thread?
That doesn’t quite make sense. Don’t get me wrong, sales can be a very lucrative career and has a very different stress (and much better work life balance), but saying that “products sell themselves” and then that firms want to pay people 300k to sell them is counterintuitive.
If these jobs were easy and the pay was so great you’d end up with many more people funneling to these jobs and with companies paying less. But having friends and family in tech sales, I can tell you it isn’t a job for everyone and there is definitely stress involved. These jobs have sales targets, and as you progress your base becomes lower and commission becomes a larger portion of pay. Additionally, you have your competitors to worry about and you are only as good as the next product your company puts out. In a way it is similar to a fund manager, where every year you start at 0 and you only get paid on what you make (in sales only get paid if you sell) and that stress can add up, and the pay can be tiny if you don’t perform.
But the reason people don’t go into the field is because the field isn’t for everyone. Not everyone goes into a job just because of the money to effort ratio. There is what interests you, what career path you want (and where you want to be longer term), as well as the probability that you’ll be successful in that job. I personally would not enjoy sales one bit, so for me the expected pay would be pretty small relatively to what I do now.
No one pays a fresh AE a $150K base. That's the base a Director of Sales is taking home at the startups you are listing and Managers take home at the large companies. New AEs are getting paid a $60-80K base and are grinding for a 50-100% bonus. They are building a book of largely mid-market names and often canvassing new geographies, industries, use cases, etc. so you are often trapped in a situation where you are temporarily doomed to fail while you put in the work to see if you can make a sale even happen. I would not underestimate how much these folks work either although it is nothing like banking/PE. You are right that some are in an amazing position to have a product selling itself into their base, but those are the lucky few that catch themselves in the right place and time. Same as with anything else.
There is no "Easy $300K / Yr With 40hrs/Wk at 25". There's a "Moderately Difficult $80-$120K / Yr With 50+ Hours a Week at 25." As that's the situation the vast majority of young tech salespeople find themselves in.
AWS SDR's are making 75k base lol.
A) New undergrad offers start at $60K in Seattle. If someone is coming in from another SDR program that's a different story. A small part of my job was once forcing our sales leadership to get smarter on what's market comp-wise, so I've seen enough from the consultants here.
B) AWS is in the top 1% of the highest paying orgs in tech sales and is coming off of a massive hiring ramp from 2017-2019
If you are so pro-tech sales why are you prospective IB? Some personalities aren't good at sales and some people do not find the work interesting. There are plenty of ways to make money. Plus, money isn't for everyone when it comes to your career. There really isn't a singular ideal entry-level job, and if it exists the competition would be insane.
I’d bet money this kid is still in school. He’s trolling. Posted the same thing in the Reddit sales sub.
You got the summer associate internship too! lmao
easier said than done
This is far from reality. Maybe the top 10% of tech sales people and some of the luckiest. What's likely is a 100-150k comp after 2-3 years. There is a lot of luck involved with this -- most tech salespeople make between 100-200k. It takes most people many years to break into enterprise sales, let alone get into a FAANG company. Unlike banking or PE, there are no "target schools" to seperate yourself either.
Your shot of getting into a position like this if you are in tech sales is like 1-2%, and its more luck than skill. Most AEs are making sub 200k working their asses off after many years in the field.
I work in tech right now as a Senior Engineer. This is just incorrect information. I love to talk about how tech has treated me well so far and I’m pretty happy with my comp for my age. But $300k at 25 is not the norm, and certainly not with 40 hours per week.
Account Executives (AEs) and Solutions Architects (SAs) at AWS/ GCP can and frequently do clear $300k- but not 25 year olds. I’m sure there’s someone out there who is an exception to the rule and they’re crushing it- good for them. But I bet they’re not working 40 hours per week.
I would say $120-150k would be the norm, and that can be 40 hours per week. This can be reached either on the engineering or sales path (or hybrid roles like Sales Engineer/ Solutions Architect). This doesn’t need to be FAANG level either, lots of firms pay out that much.
FAANG engineers can clear $200k by 25, maybe the few SAs/ AEs who are great at their jobs by that age. But $300k is pushing it.
120k-150k for only 40 hrs per week sounds like a deal
what is the exit?
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