[quote=kewp]I have to admit; I’m still chuffed that IT sales engineers make more money than the developers that actually create the product.
I suppose this is made up by the fact they are usually fired first in a downturn.[/quote]
Reality check. A buddy who runs a 3 person software company (being the creator of a the product) pays his single sales guy 50% of the proceeds. The remaining 50% is is split between him, his cost, and the third “developer”, and i assure you that it’s not a 25/25 split on the remaining 50%
I’ll never be in sales, simply because I wouldn’t perform well there (and I hate traveling all the time). You do have to have a type of personality for it. And if someone is good at making that big commision check, so be it. Better for the company itself. Software or and product usually doesn’t “self-market”. Also, when people look at software sales folks, they tend to only see the ones that do well. I worked with software sales enough at a smaller company, a good portion of them were constantly looking for a job simply because if they missed their numbers in 1 or maybe 2 quarters (if they did major asskissing) they were fired. Of course these folks were pulling in $300k+ each year if they meet their numbers and spent most of their time living in a suitcase. Plus, the base pay is so sucky, that if you didn’t make your numbers, it wouldn’t make sense to stay even if you weren’t fired.
I personally don’t care what others make in other fields, because usually, when I look into what their doing either (1) I wouldn’t be able to do what their doing or (2) I have no interest in what they are doing. The only heartburn I still have is leaving the old QC when times were interesting, but nearly not as interesting as they were after I left…. I tend to be more self-competitive than anything else. I’m the toughest critic of myself. Sure, I’m sure a good plumber or mechanic does really well, but again, while some people like to do this, tinkering for me is a hobby. I wouldn’t want to do it everyday.
