High Expectations: the SE role comes with high expectations, and the pressure to meet sales targets and quotas is demanding.
Competitive Environment: The technology industry is highly competitive, and working in sales requires dealing with intense competition from other companies, most notably Microsoft.
Travel Requirements: SEs must travel frequently to meet clients, partners, and attend conferences. This could be a positive or a negative, depending on how you view it. If you are a work from home person then it is not for you as they want you in the office a few days a week and out wining and dining customers and prospects as often as possible.
Work-Life Balance: The demand for meeting sales goals sometimes lead to a work-life imbalance, particularly during busy periods such as EOQ and EOY or when working with clients in different time zones.
Constant Learning Curve: While some may see this as a pro, others might find it challenging to constantly stay updated on new technologies and industry trends. Enablement trainings often come out with tight time constraints to finish within X number of days, regardless of what other commitments at that time whilst in reality the arbitrary completion/certification deadlines could be far more relaxed.
Changing SE Role: The shift from a self-hosted software to a SaaS solution combined with the recent changes to SE responsibilities - with installations run by the RSEs and customers now being taken care of by Solutions Engineers, Sales Engineers roles are essentially presales only now with little to no hands on working with technology. The result is a role where the majority of time is spent on demos and building/presentation ppts. There are little to no engineering aspects involved in the role anymore - which again could be a positive or negative, depending on your point of view.
Too much of a focus on metrics and dollars rather than happy customers and employees. With the right focus on the outcomes of happy customers and employees, combined with understanding and pulling the most important growth levers the business would soar.
