Ask HN: Web Developer with Sales Experience?
I was in sales from 2007 until January 2013 when I made the jump to software development. I have since been a consultant working on Rails/NodeJS/Backbone/React, and I spend a bunch of free time writing code because its so damn fun.
Curious if anyone can share their experiences of being a sales person and becoming a developer? Have you found new opportunities that weren’t available without having both skills? Have you found that you had to choose one or the other?
I had a few sales jobs before starting to code fulltime. Nothing major. It never really helped me at my fulltime jobs, but it definitely helped as a consultant. The ability to be "good in a room" is rare for technical folks. You'll be a hot commodity for agencies or dev-shops; anyone who routinely needs a technical voice to step in and woo the client before closing the sale.
I realized years ago that being in this middle-ground was my strongest asset. Not the best salesman, not the best coder, but can exist comfortably in both worlds. I'd recommend cultivating both skillsets.
That skill set can open the door to a sales engineering position for a software company. It's decent money and you can often take part in both worlds doing technical stuff but still taking part in sales calls and prospect interaction.