Assuming you were equally skilled at both, would any of you have rather been a Software Engineer (SWE) over an Account Executive (AE)?
Sometimes, I feel like the average Enterprise AE makes more than the average SWE. However, they also take on more risk. (I used to do headhunting / recruiting, so I've had access to a lot of salary data.)
In terms of the advantages of SWE, I'd say ...
-more likely to get equity
-more likely to get fully remote job
-significantly less comp risk (i.e., 50% of comp is not variable) / less likely to get fired. There are always going to be bugs to solve as a SWE. But as an AE, if your territory gets too narrow / your quota too high / or loss of product-market fit, you're on the chopping block).
-better external perception of job (i.e., media portrays SWEs as geniuses, whereas sales people sometimes gets a bad rap)
-easier to progress if you're top 1-10% (sales has a culture where you need to earn your stripes. E.g., you probably need to be in your 30s-40s at least to become a VP of Sales. Whereas if you're a savant engineer, you can name your price regardless of age)
-job can be "fun" if you're into puzzles / problem-solving, whereas sales is seen more of a "grind"
Advantages of AE ...
-no technical assessments (SWE interviews can take ~3 months to prepare, even for seasoned, experienced SWE vets)
-uncapped earning potential (ability to W2 7 figures with the right territory / product / timing / work ethic)
-less top-heavy in terms of high-paying companies (the main companies that pay SWEs a lot are all FAANG+, but there are literally tens of thousands of small, medium, and large SaaS companies that can pay the big, big bucks for high-performing AEs)
-skillset has a better maturation with time (sometimes, I feel like SWEs are in a tough spot because they build a foundation on sand learning a certain language / technology that may become obsolete, so they need to spend a significant amount of time constantly doing "unpaid" re-training to stay on top with a landscape that changes DAILY. Whereas sales more or less stays the same (even across industries), and you simply need to learn higher-level concepts to do well in a new role). In a similar vein, being a SWE is like being a high-performance athlete: if you take a 6-month hiatus, you completely forget how to do your job / fall out of shape. Whereas sales is more like riding a bike: your muscle-memory will always retain the core principles, even if you need to polish & retrain every now & then.
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