The Complete Guide to Client Facing Engineer Positions
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If you want to move into the next salary band as an engineer then moving to a client-facing position is a great way to level up.
Alternatively, if you are coming from a sales and marketing role, adding technical experience to your resume is a great way to the C-Suite.
Whatever your reason, we made this guide to help you understand the roles available to Client-Facing Engineers in Saas and IT.
At Wahl+Case, we have helped hundreds of candidates land jobs at the biggest names in tech. Companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Rakuten.
So, I sat down with the Team Leader of our Client Facing Technical team, Marcel Oka, to go over the specifics for each position.
Here is what we are going to cover:
What is a client facing engineer?
What are the types of positions available?
Responsibilities, Skills, Day to Day, and FAQs for each position
A glossary of terms relating to Client Facing Engineering
There is a lot to cover, so let's get started.
What is a Client Facing Engineer?
A Client Facing Engineer is an engineer that also handles client interactions.
In this type of role, your responsibilities can range from technical demos to implementation, to solving issues, to building out products based on client needs.
As a Client Facing Engineer you will be expected to have a blend of several skill sets: technical skills, client interactions, and sales ability.
Some examples of Client Facing Engineering roles are Technical Support, Pre-Sales Engineer, Technical Account Manager, Solutions Consultant, Solutions Architect, Customer Success Manager, and Implementation Engineer.
I will break down where each role fits in the customer relationship in the next section.
Client Facing Engineer Roles
The best way to think of this is by dividing the positions into Pre-Sales and Post-Sales.
Client Facing Engineer Position Infographic
What is Pre-Sales?
Pre-sales refers to any customer interactions that are happening before the prospect has agreed to buy your service or product.
In a Pre-sales role, you will engage with the client before the deal has been closed by the sales team.
The focus for Pre-Sales roles will be to drive the prospect to purchase.
For Client Facing Engineers, this means knowing the in and outs of how your prospect’s business operates from a technical perspective and the pain points that your solution will solve.
We will dive deeper into this in the Pre-Sales Engineer section.
Pre-sales Positions
Pre-Sales Engineer
Sales Engineer
What is Post-sales?
In a Post-Sales position, you will engage with the client after the deal has been closed by your sales team.
When working in these positions, you are guiding the customer through implementation and beyond.
You will ensure that the client is getting the most use from the product, solve technical problems that the client is facing, and look down the road to anticipate and overcome any future issues.
A majority of Client Facing Engineers work in post-sales roles.
Post-Sales Positions
Customer Success Manager
Technical Account Manager
Technical Support
Post-Sales Engineer
Implementation Engineer
Solutions Engineer
Solutions Architect
A Bit of Both
As you can see in the graphic above, the differences are less cut and dried, so there are roles that also cross this divide, such as Solutions Consultant, Solutions Architect, and Solutions Engineer.
We will go over each of these roles in detail in the next section.
Mixed Positions
Solutions Consultant
Engagement Manager
Not Exactly Engineers
There are two other positions that have a mix of technical tasks and business tasks, but they do not fit perfectly into the engineer category. I have included them because these roles need both business acumen and engineering skills:
Task Managers:
Project Manager
Product Manager
Now let’s take a deep dive into each position, starting with:
Pre-Sales Engineer / Sales Engineer
Alternative Titles: Pre-Sales, Pre-Sales Engineer, Sales Engineer
What is a Pre-Sales Engineer?
As a Pre-Sales Engineer or Sales Engineer, you are the trusted advisor to your customers before they have agreed to purchase your solution. In other words, you are an engineer that engages with customers before they buy or pre-sale.
You will join in all pre-sales meetings to ensure that things are progressing smoothly on the technical track, as compared to the “commercial” track that the sales team is working with the prospect on.
Unlike a traditional sales role, you will not have a KPI target, and you will not be cold calling, but you will go to the initial meeting with the sales team and describe the product in technical terms to the potential customer.
You will talk clients through what the process will be like starting with implementation and what they can expect from a technical standpoint.
This is important for foreign companies when they enter a new market because by the time the product is launched in an overseas market, it is already a finished product and the dev team will be based in Head Quarters, therefore this will be one of the first positions that are hired.
Skills
Hard Skills
Product Knowledge
It will be your job to showcase all the ways your product can solve the prospect's problems.To do this off the top of your head you will need to study all available training materials and get into the weeds with the solution that your company offers.
Technical demos
You will need to code and create technical demos to help your clients understand your product.Here is a quote from an SE at Teleport:
”So though you are no longer in a production IT role, you still need to be able to do deep technical work as an SE. For us, that means understanding and using Kubernetes, Terraform, Ansible, some Go, GitHub, etc. Familiarity with a terminal is huge. Understanding how cloud networking works, how security works, how DevOps and DevSecOps work, is fundamental to being successful as an SE.”This allows you creative freedom as to how you will design each demo for different customers.
Technical writing
You are the breathing guidebook for your customers, but it is always helpful to have things in writing as well.You will need to be proficient in technical writing to create documents that your customers can refer to when you are not available.
Soft Skills
Research
Being a Presales engineer means meeting with potential customers. You will need to know what makes their business tick before you have a chance to speak with them directly.This will help you understand the best ways to communicate with them during your initial meeting.
Storytelling
Storytelling in sales is a great way to connect what you are saying to how your clients are feeling.These can be user stories, hypothetical user stories, semi-fictional, or parts of larger guides that your customers will be referring to.
Sales ability
Empathy and communication are key here. You need to be able to understand your client's pain points and concerns, then convey how you will solve them.
Presentations
You need to be comfortable speaking in front of people and delivering messages that resonate with those you are communicating with.In addition, you will need to be able to actually craft effective presentations combining your presentation skills with your demonstration skills.
Leading meetings
Not only will you need to present, but you will need to lead these meetings with the technical teams on the customer side. This will require the ability to prioritize, guide, and engage all stakeholders.Continuous Learning
A huge part of your job will be to stay up to date with the features and tech that your company offers, and the trends in tech that may be affecting your customers.As a Pre-Sales Engineer, you need to be excited at the idea of continuous learning.
Pre-Sales Engineer Day to Day
As a Pre-Sales Engineer, your day-to-day activities include researching companies you will be meeting with, presenting your product to potential customers, creating technical demos for said meetings, and creating presentations to effectively communicate the benefits of your product.
You will also need to create pre-sales technical documentation for the solutions engineer or integration engineer to use once the prospect has become a customer.
Another component will be creating a proof of concept to show that once the customer has purchased your product the integration will work.
How to get a Pre-Sales Job
Sales engineer and Pre-sales engineer can be a hard role to fill, so it is a great opportunity to move into a client-facing role from an engineering position.
The salary range can also be higher, especially in Japan, because you need to be bilingual, as you will be working with dev teams overseas and domestic clients.
Having said that, you will need sales skills as well. As a software engineer, this is not something that you get exposed to a lot, so you will need to develop this skill on your own.
If you are interested in moving in this direction, some companies offer training on becoming a pre-sales or sales engineer from being an engineer if you already have the technical background in place.
Looking for a new Pre-Sales or Sales Engineer role? Message us today!
Solutions Consultant
Alternative Titles: Solutions Consultant, Technical Account Manager, Customer Success Manager, Client Solutions Manager, Client Success Manager, Technical Solutions Consultant.
What is a Solutions Consultant?
As a Solutions Consultant, you are a business-minded engineer that will consult with customers before and after they have purchased to assess their business needs and demonstrate the solutions your technology can offer and how these will solve their pain points.
Post-sale, you will lead the implementation process, design solutions that address the needs of your clients, and offer continuous support to ensure that your customers are reaping the full benefits of your solutions.
Skills
Hard Skills
Expert Product Knowledge
You will be working in both a Pre-Sales and Post-Sales capacity, thus the expectation is that you will be the resident product expert.Code
HTML/JavaScript/CSS
Coding is table stakes for any technical position.
Although you will not by any means be working as a developer, there are times when you will need to get hands on keyboard to solve issues or build technical demos for your clients.Cloud
If your business is a cloud business then this is a no-brainer. You need an understanding of virtualization, networks, Linux, and cloud architecture.API
The majority of businesses leverage APIs in some way and it is likely that you will need to help your client integrate their tech using these tools.Data
Python, SQL, R
You will be pulling data for your clients daily. Having a foundation in Python, SQL, and/or R will be essential.Additionally, data visualization is another useful skill for Solutions Consultants. Tools such as Tableau and Microsoft PowerBI should cover your bases.
Solutions Design
You will be constantly meeting with clients to assess their business needs, understand those needs on a deep level, and design solutions for those needs.
Soft Skills
Communication
As with all client facing roles, effective communication is critical in all aspects of being a Solutions Consultant.You will motivate and influence your clients, your internal technical teams, and the technical team of your clients.
Troubleshooting
You will look for novel solutions to complex problems, and not be discouraged easily when facing roadblocks.
Problem Solving
You will need to look beyond the surface to uncover root causes so that you can build long-term solutions.Passion for helping customers
In this role, you will not only be serving customers but also empowering them by providing knowledge and tools that go beyond the baseline understanding of your solutions.Content Creation
As part of your responsibilities, you will be developing best practices, customer facing assets, and internal resources
Solutions Consultant Day to Day
As a Solutions Consultant, your day-to-day activities include researching companies you will be meeting with, presenting your product to potential customers, creating technical demos for said meetings, and creating presentations to effectively communicate the benefits of your product.
You will also need to create pre-sales technical documentation for the solutions engineer or integration engineer to use once the prospect has become a customer.
Another component will be creating a proof of concept to show that once the customer has purchased your product the integration will work.
How to get a job as a Solutions Consultant
If you are currently working as an engineer, the best way to land a job as a Solutions Consultant is to work on your soft skills.
Ask your current employer if there is any training that you can do to build these skills internally.
If there are no internal resources, I have put together a list of skills for Business Development Managers, that will help set you in the right direction. Check it out here.
If you are currently working in a client facing role, but are lacking the technical skills, I would recommend our 5 Skills to get you Hired as a CSM blog. I have included strategies and links that will help you build your technical skills.
As noted above, the first place you should look is internally at your current company.
Ask the teams you are interested in joining if you can shadow them to learn what their job activities are or join trainings that are provided by your company.
FAQ
What is the difference between a Customer Success Manager and a Solutions Consultant?
These two positions can have a lot of overlap and the differences can sometimes come down to the name the company chooses.
There are some differences though.
Generally speaking, a Customer Success Manager is a post-sales role, meaning that you will be engaging after the sales team has closed the customer.
As a Solutions Consultant, however, you can be involved in meeting the customers that have not yet signed and will be responsible for assessing their needs and then designing solutions to fit those needs.
What are the differences between a Technical Account Manager and a Solutions Consultant?
As with the CSM vs the SC, these two positions can also have a lot of overlap. Often, the differences will come down to the name the company chooses.
However, a Technical Account Manager is a post-sales role, meaning that you will be engaging after the sales team has closed the customer.
As a Solutions Consultant, you can be involved in the sales process. You will potentially be meeting with customers that have not yet signed and will be responsible for assessing their needs then designing solutions to fit those needs.
Engagement Manager
Alternative Titles: Technical Key Account Manager, Technical Enterprise Account Manager, Technical Client Program Manager
What is an Engagement Manager in SaaS and IT?
As an Engagement Manager in SaaS and IT, you will be responsible for managing key enterprise accounts and you will own strategic programs that support the organization, which means that you will be interfacing with high-level clients and adapting the product to fit their requests.
Each program will be comprised of multiple smaller projects, each helping build the product out to be what the account is requesting.
This role comes from the consulting world, but has recently been adopted by companies in the tech space.
Skills
Hard Skills
System Configuration
When you work as an Engagement Manager, a large part of your role will be building and configuring solutions that your customers are requesting. Therefore, experience with system configuration will be a valuable skill.Product Knowledge
As with all these positions, you need to be the expert that your clients trust when they need solutions. Which will rely heavily on your product knowledge.This goes beyond the fundamentals, you need to be constantly keeping up to date with any new release and updates to ensure that you are able to build the right solution for your customers.
Code
Javascript/HTML/CSS and C#
As an Engagement Manger, you will need to have a solid foundation in code. You will not be working as a developer, however, there will be times when you need to build and configure the product requests that your clients provide.API
Working with clients and integrating tech means using APIs. Knowing how to build these integration will be essential as an Engagement Manager in IT and SaaS.Cloud
If you are working with cloud solutions, then you will need to be knowledgeable on Virtualization, Cloud Networking, Linux, Containers, and Blob storage.Data
Many businesses claim to “run on data” so a foundation in SQL, Python, or R is a must for Engagement Managers in tech.
Soft Skills
Communication
You need to be able to convey the technical aspect to a non-technical audience.This means speaking the language that will inspire your customers, your team, and all other stakeholders to adopt the solutions you are building.
Project Management
You will be setting goals for the short term and long term, as well as milestones and OKRs. You will need to be able to think from birds-eye view to convey exactly how the project can be delivered according to the target that your clients are aiming for.Problem Solving
As an Engagement Manager, You will always be looking for novel solutions to complex problems, and not be discouraged easily when facing roadblocks.You will need to look beyond the surface to uncover root causes so that you can build long-term solutions.
Passion for helping customers
In this role, you will not only be serving customers but also empowering them by providing knowledge, documents, and tools that go beyond the baseline understanding of your solutions.This can mean creating content, such as videos, that will help communicate the most up-to-date material about your product.
Leading Meetings
Because you are meeting with your client every day as an Engagement Manager, you need to have the ability to lead these meetings.Setting the agenda, moving from one topic to another smoothly, and making sure that everyone understands before moving on, are all parts of this skill set.
Engagement Manager Day to Day
As an Engagement Manager, you will need to develop a deep understanding of the platform you are working with and the businesses of your clients. You will provide consultation, build client relationships, identify and explore opportunities, and drive revenue by delivering on your client’s and your company’s business objectives.
Additionally, you will drive the creation and delivery of quarterly and annual business reviews with clients, be accountable for the delivery of programs, owning short and long-term results, for increased revenue and improved client services.
Your responsibilities will include qualification, solution design, solution consulting, risk management, and commercialization for each of the programs you build for your clients.
In this role, you will need to work seamlessly with multiple internal stakeholders across business and technical functions, and you will need to demonstrate skills and experience at unsticking execution, especially where people resources report elsewhere.
It will fall to you to develop strategies, roadmaps, OKRs, projects, and risk mitigation plans while working closely with teams to execute against them.
How to get a job as an Engagement Manager in Tech
This is a senior role, very close to leadership. Meaning that if you are looking to join as an Engagement Manager, you are going to need experience in a relevant field, technical experience and client facing experience.
Having worked in any of the other positions listed above is a great step toward entering into an Engagement Manager role.
Looking for a new Post-Sales Engineer role? Message us today!
Solutions Architect
Alternative Titles: Solutions Consultant, Pre-Sales, Sales Engineer, Post-Sales Engineer, Client Solutions Architect, Cloud Architect
What is a Solutions Architect?
As a Solution Architect, you combine technical design skills with business acumen.
You are the designer of the systems that solve the business problems of your customers.
Another way to say this is that you will build (architect) the systems that offer solutions to your customer’s pain points.
Just as an architect designs buildings, but does actually build them, you will be designing systems for your customers and the development teams will build these.
Skills
Hard Skills
System Design
In this role, you will be designing multi-layer systems for your customers, so you will need to have an understanding of how everything works together in enterprise architecture at a very high levelIT Architecture Knowledge
Designing systems requires a broad knowledge of how all the elements work together. That is why it is important for you as a Solution Architect to be familiar with IT Architecture.In-depth Product Knowledge
As with all Client Facing Engineering positions, you will be the walking talking instruction manual for your clients.You will need to know all the ins-and-outs and tips-and-tricks to ensure they are getting the results they need and beyond.
The following skills will be more or less relevant depending on the type of product you are working with.
Code
Javascript/HTML/CSS and C#
As a Solutions Architect you will not be building the systems that you design, however, in order to communicate and integrate these systems, you will need an understanding of the coding languages listed above.As with any technical role, coding is a must-have skill.
API
APIs have become ubiquitous in the tech business world, so any SA with an understanding of how to leverage API to integrate systems will be worth their weight in gold.Cloud
Cloud is a technology that all businesses have begun to leverage.There is a high chance you are reading that and considering a job as an AWS Solution Architect, which means you need to understand how things like virtualization, container, blob storage, and Linux can be leveraged to solve the business issues that you clients are facing.
Data
SQL/Python/R
Again, this is pretty much an expectation for any technical role.As an SA, you will need to be competent in database concepts which means a baseline knowledge of at least one of the languages listed above.
Soft Skills
Communication
The fact that is mentioned for each role should give you an indicator of just how important it is to have solid communication skills, whether it be in-person, online, oral, written, or all other forms.You need to be able to speak the language that motivates the person you are communicating with.
Agile Methodology
Experience leading Scrum or Kanban focused teams will put you in a good place to lead the design of the systems for your clients.Leading Meetings
Because you are meeting with clients every day, you need to have the ability to lead these meetings in the direction that you need them to go.Setting the agenda, moving from one topic to another smoothly, and making sure that everyone understands before moving on, are all parts of this skill set.
Creating Content
As a Solutions Architect, you create documents and presentations for your customers and internal teams to learn from. Therefore, content creation and knowledge of tools such as Photoshop, Canva, Pages, Slidebean, and PowerPoint will be useful.Storytelling
Part of your role as an SA will be to convey information in a way that resonates with the customer and helps them easily understand the benefits of your solution. Storytelling is a great skill to leverage in these situations.
Solutions Architect Day to Day
As an SA, your days will consist of high-level pitching, developing proof of concepts, continuously learning more about technology, handling implementation, and diving into the product with the client at the time of integration.
All these tasks will be part of your responsibilities as a Solutions Architect.
At larger firms like Amazon or Google, you will need a high degree of technical knowledge. The breakdown here would be 70-80% Technical tasks, with the 20-30% being client facing.
At smaller firms, Pre-Sales Engineer can be another title for this role.
When working with your clients, you will need to be able to draw the whole technical architecture, draw out the integration, and then handle the integration.
How to get a job as a Solutions Architect
The best way to get a job as an SA is to start with Pre-sales or software development and then grow into that role. Ask your current employer if there are training opportunities or shadow the teams that you want to join in the future.
To get a job as an SA, you nee to have a drive to be in front of clients. A lot of software engineers are not aware of their personality, so you should work on being outgoing and get comfortable talking with clients.
Another angle here is that you might be afraid to lose your technical skills, but if you move into this role, there is still a coding requirement.
Additionally, as you step up in the career ladder you code less and less regardless of the position. If you become CTO you will be coding less as well.
So moving into a client facing engineering role is stepping up in terms of your career ladder.
FAQ
What is the difference between a Solutions Consultant and a Solutions Architect?
There are many cases in which these titles can be interchangeable, here I am going to address the times when that is not the case.
As a Solution Consultant, you will be in charge of leveraging the existing technologies and productize the customer needs that lay outside of the current product offering.
Compared to the Solutions Architect, the need to build advanced enterprise level systems will be less.
As a Solutions Architect, you will be responsible for designing the systems that will be built by the dev teams.
Both roles will require you to be business minded, customer obsessed, and have a baseline ability to code, but as an SA you will be designing high level systems rather than individual solutions.
Want to learn more about being a Solutions Architect? Message us today!
Solutions Engineer
Alternative Titles: Cloud Engineer, Solutions Architect, Pre-Sales, Pre-Sales Engineer, Sales Engineer
What is a Solutions Engineer?
As a Solutions Engineer it is your job to take in product requests from your customers, then build, configure, and implement the requested solutions.
You will be the mid way point between the business side and the technical side; translating business needs into technical solutions.
Skills
Hard Skills
System Configuration
When you work as a Solutions Engineer, a large part of your role will be building and configuring solutions that your customers are requesting. Therefore, experience with system configuration will be valuable in all SE roles.Product Knowledge
As with all these positions, you need to be the expert that your clients trust when they need solutions engineered. Which will rely heavily on your product knowledge.This goes beyond the fundamentals, you need to be constantly keeping up to date with any new release and updates to ensure that you are able to build the right solution for your customers.
Code
Javascript/HTML/CSS and C#
As a Solutions Engineer, you will not need to know all these languages, but you will need to have a solid foundation in at least one.You will not be working as a developer, however, there will be times when you need to build and configure the product requests that your clients provide.
API
Depending on the company you are working for, your job will either be filled with build out API integrations or lightly filled with building out API integrations.Even our team here at Wahl+Case uses them regularly.
Cloud
If you are working with cloud solutions, then you will need to be knowledgeable on Virtualizaion, Cloud Networking, Linux, Containers, and Blob storage.Data
Many businesses claim to “run on data” so a foundation in SQL, Python, or R is a must for every Solutions Architect.
Soft Skills
Communication
You need to be able to convey the technical aspect to a non-technical audience.This means speaking the language that will inspire your customers, your team, and all other stakeholders to adopt the solutions you are building.
Problem Solving
As a Solution Engineer, You will always be looking for novel solutions to complex problems, and not be discouraged easily when facing roadblocks.You will need to look beyond the surface to uncover root causes so that you can build long-term solutions.
Passion for helping customers
In this role, you will not only be serving customers but also empowering them by providing knowledge, documents, and tools that go beyond the baseline understanding of your solutions.This can mean creating content, such as videos, that will help communicate the most up to date material about your product.
Leading Meetings
Because you are meeting with clients every day as a Solutions Engineer, you need to have the ability to lead these meetings.Setting the agenda, moving from one topic to another smoothly, and making sure that everyone understands before moving on, are all parts of this skill set.
Solutions Engineer Day to Day
As a Solutions Engineer, you will have days where you are coding a lot and other days where you will not be coding at all.
You will be meeting clients to assess their needs and then translating those needs into technical requirements. The you will build those solutions.
You will also need to handle client product requests and determine whether they are feasible.
How to get a job as a Solutions Engineer
You can come from either a commercial background or a technical background and land a job as a Solution Engineer.
If you are an engineer a great way to move into the role is to talk with your current employer and let them know that you are interested in moving toward a client facing position. Hopefully, they will provide you with the training on soft skills, allow you to shadow mentors who are working with the client facing teams and help you build a timeline for your move.
If not, then you will need to get educated on your own. The first step will be to become an expert at whatever product you are working with, this will show future employers that you are capable and passionate about learning. The next would be to develop your soft skills, and we have an article going over the top soft skills in sales and how to build them. Check it out here.
The path from a business side role is very much the inverse, ask your company if you can get trained on the technical aspects of your product or learn the skills on your own. We also have an article covering some top skills and ways to build them, check it out here.
FAQ
What is the difference between a Solution Architect and a Solution Engineer?
These positions can have the same description at many companies, however, at the core there is one major difference. An Solutions Architect designs the systems, where as an Solutions Engineer builds the systems.
Both will meet with clients and both will come up with ways to leverage the technology to solve pain points for customers, but the scope of a Solutions Architect is generally in the designing of the systems, compared to an engineer, who would be more focused on building the individual solutions.
Looking for a new Solutions Engineer role? Message us today!
Post-Sales Engineer / Implementation Engineer
Alternative Titles: Technical Account Manager, Implementation Engineer, Post-Sales Engineer, Implementation Specialist, Post-Sales
What is a Post-Sales Engineer?
As a Post-Sales Engineer, you are an engineer who helps with all of the customer needs after the deal has been closed by the sales team. You will only be meeting with the customers Post-Sale, which is where the name comes from.
Your job is to handle the implementation of your technology with your clients and guide them through the setup after the solution has been implemented.
From there you will be their trusted advisor on all things related to the solution your company offer.
At some companies, as a post-sales engineer, you will only be in charge of implementing the solution.
Skills
Hard Skills
Expert Product Knowledge
In a Post-Sales role, you will be the person that your customers trust the most, and because of this, you need to be the product expert they expect you to be.You will need to keep up with any changes made to your solution and any updated from the client side.
System Configuration
Your role in helping implement your solution will require you to be knowledgeable in system configuration to ensure that each integration runs smoothly. This will tie into your knowledge of the capabilities and best practices of your solution.API
If you are working with mobile or web-based products, then as a Post-Sales Engineer you will need to know how to handle those API integrations.Cloud
Cloud services have grown into total enterprise solutions and knowing how to implement those solutions for your clients will be key.Data
There are two sides to the data skillset you need.The first is the ability to run queries and read the numbers. Languages such as SQL, R, and Python will serve you well.
The second is data visualization. Here the tools you will need will be Tableau or Microsoft Power BI.
Soft Skills
Communication
You will see this come up again and again throughout this guide. As with any client facing role, your communication skills and listening skills will need to be top-notch.You will need to inspire your customer’s trust and motivate them to follow your instructions.
Leading meetings
Not only will you need to present, but you will need to lead these meetings with the technical teams on the customer side. This will require the ability to prioritize, guide, and engage all stakeholders.Continuous Learning
A huge part of your job will be to stay up to date with the features and tech that your company offers, and the trends in tech that may be affecting your customers.As a Post-Sales Engineer, you need to be excited at the idea of continuous learning.
Post-sales/Implementation Engineer Day to Day
Your day as a post-sales engineer will consist of meeting clients, handling implementation, and configuring the system to meet the client's needs. You need to ensure that your product is properly configured to the technical requirements of your customers.
How to get a Post-Sales Engineer Job
To get a Post-Sales job you can come from either a technical background or a business background.
If you are currently an engineer, talk with you manager and let them know that you want to be more client facing. Ask if you can assist on any client facing projects, or even shadow the team as they do so. The key here is to try and develop your soft skills.
On the flip side, if you are coming from a sales background, ask to be trained on the technical aspect of the product you are working with or spend time learning how to code or database management.
Looking for a new Post-Sales Engineer role? Message us today!
Customer Success Manager
Alternative Titles: Customer Success Manager, Client Solutions Manager, Client Services Manager, Technical Account Manager
What is a Customer Success Manager?
It is all in the name. You are managing the success of your customers. This means it will be your responsibility to ensure that each customer is getting the most benefit from your product.
As a CSM, Your success depends on your customer’s success. You will achieve this through onboarding, coaching, frequent check-ins, updates, and recommendations to your clients.
Each company might have different technical requirements for its Customer Success team, but you will need to be a product expert on the product you offer and a trusted advisor to your clients at any firm you join.
In many organizations, as a CSM your responsibilities will be very similar to those of a Technical Account Manager.
Skills
Hard Skills
Product Knowledge
This is the most important skill you can have in a Customer Success position.As a CSM, you will need to guide your clients through their entire lifecycle with your product. Although the technical expectations will be a bit less than in a product engineering role, you will still need to have top-tier product knowledge.
This means you understand the underlying technologies that allow your product to function and how your solution will communicate with the technology of your clients.
It also means you are aware of any changes that are coming down the pipeline on your side or your clients.
The next few skills are more specific to the type of product you are working with and can fall under the umbrella of “Product Knowledge”
Data
Python, R, SQL, and of course Excel.
These are core skills that are good to have for almost any position in tech. As a CSM, they will be essential to reading and reporting the usage of your product for your customers.The second part of a solid data skillset is visualization. Tools like Tableau and Microsoft PowerBI are good to have experience with to help display the benefits and areas of improvement to your customers.
API
I worked as an AdTech consultant before joining the marketing team here at Wahl+Case, so this was a skill that all my clients were happy to see on a resume.API integrations have become an integral part of any technical skillset. They are the connective tissue for your product and the tech stack of your customers.
Cloud
If your business is cloud services you will need to be familiar with how this technology works.This will require an in-depth understanding of Virtualization, Containers, Linux, and Cloud Architecture.
CRM
As in any customer-facing role, being a CSM means keeping your CRM system updated with any new info about your current customers.You will need to be comfortable using a variety of tools such as Salesforce or Hubspot.
Soft Skills
Communication
I put this first because it is essential for any role. Really, any role. It is crucial that you are able to win the trust of your clients, as without trust they will not follow any of your recommendations.This means you need to be able to speak the language that your clients find most motivating and will drive them to take the actions that you are suggesting, knowing that you have their success in mind.
Customer Obsession
Your success is dependent on the success of your customers. As our one rule here at Wahl+Case says: Always do what is in the best interest of your customers. Always.You need to have a passion for solving your customer’s problems before they even know they have a problem.
Coaching
This skill is somewhat unique to a CSM. Often our clients want their customer success team to be seen as collaborators and motivators for their customers.You will lead trainings, events, classes, and anything you can to get your customers success using your solution.
Relationship Management
This can overlap with the other soft skills mentioned here, but it is worth talking about in a bit more detail.As a Customer Success Manager, you need to know when to cater to your client’s requests and when to guide them in the direction that you need them to go.
You will also need to be aware of your cadence of communication with your customers, prioritizing the account that will have the most impact.
CSM Day to Day
In your day-to-day, you will be communicating with clients, in-person and online.
For new customers or newly launched products, you will need to be handling the implementation and integration with the client’s technical teams.
You will also be working internally with the development team to follow any upcoming updates, bugs, patches, and new launches.
Additionally, you will be in constant contact with the sales team, specifically, the Account Manager, with whom you share the accounts.
Creating onboarding programs also falls under your responsibilities.
How to get a Customer Success Job
As with a TAM, there are a few paths that can lead you to get a job as a CSM.
The first is through an engineering background. If you have experience building and maintaining products, then you just need to add soft skills to your repertoire. Many companies will offer training to help you develop these soft skills if you want to move into a client facing role.
The inverse is another option. If you are currently working in a sales role, but want to move to a more technical role, the hard skills listed above will set you off in the right direction.
FAQ
What is the difference between a Customer Success Manager and an Account Manager?
The main difference between a Customer Success Manager and an Account Manager is that as a CSM the expected level of your product knowledge will be much higher. You will need to handle implementation and onboarding from a technical standpoint, provide coaching, and get into the weeds on any technical issues that your accounts are facing.
As an Account Manager, on the other hand, you are focused on the commercial aspects of the solutions, such as how much revenue is being generated from your tool.
These two positions will often work together and act as the bridge between the technical teams and the commercial teams.
What is the difference between Technical Account Manager and Customer Success Manager?
To be honest, the difference here can come down to what the company wants to call the position.
Having said that, in my experience, there are more commercial aspects to a CSM role than a TAM role.
As a CSM, you will likely have upselling, cross selling, and renewal targets, but as a TAM you will be focused purely on the technical aspects of the relationship.
Want to work as a Customer Success Manager? Message us today!
Technical Account Manager
Alternative Titles: Technical Account Manager, Customer Success Manager, Solutions Consultant, Client Solutions Manager, Customer Success Engineer
What is a Technical Account Manager?
As a Technical Account Manager, you are a trusted product expert that manages customers, i.e. accounts, through technical implementation and beyond.
This is a post-sales role, so you will be engaging with accounts after the contracts have been signed and the service has started.
You will be the point of contact if there is any problem with the integration or if there are changes that the client needs to make during the implementation process.
After the integration has been completed, you will be continuously keeping in touch with your clients to make sure that they are not running into any technical issues.
You will guide them through any updates or new features that are launched, and ensure that any updates from their side will not cause issues with your solution.
Hard Skills
Expert Product Knowledge
This is the #1 hard skill, the others will all fall under this. As a TAM it is vital that you understand your product on a deep level so that you can assist your clients with any and all issues they encounter.You need to understand what is causing issues, how to stop them, and how to make improvements to the product for your accounts.
This also means staying up to date with any updates, features, and changes that are coming to your product, as well as your client's product and the overall industry.
Additionally, you will need the know-how to make direct changes to the system if your clients require it.
API
If you are working with mobile or web-based products, and chances are you are, then as a TAM you will need to know how to handle those API integrations.Cloud
Cloud services have grown into total enterprise solutions and knowing how to implement those solutions for your clients will be key.Data
There are two sides to the data skillset you need.The first is the ability to run queries and read the numbers. Languages such as SQL, R, and Python will serve you well.
The second is data visualization. Here the tools you will need will be Tableau or Microsoft Power BI.
CRM
Customer Relationship Management. This refers to both the soft skills of managing the customer relationship, and to a specific set of solutions that allow you to track your customer interactions all in one place.You will be using these tools daily to track the usage, results, errors, and fixes of your clients.
Examples of these tools: Hubspot, Salesforce, Zoho
Soft Skills
Communication
Much like the Technical Support Engineer, Technical Account Manager is a post-sales role. This position will require you to do direct problem solving by yourself, which means effective communication is a necessary skill, just like with Technical Support.In this role, you will also need to coordinate closet with your sales team to improve the overall satisfaction of the customer.
Passion for helping customers
To be successful as a Technical Account Manager you will need to be passionate about helping people.It will be your job to be the guide for your customers and ensure that they are confident enough to overcome any errors or issues that they face.
Prioritization
Working with several customers at one time is the nature of any account manager role, therefore you must be able to use your time effectively to ensure that all your accounts are satisfied with the service you are providing.This is where your prioritization skills will be needed.
Other Soft Skills
There are several other soft skills that have been mentioned in the Skills section of the Pre-Sales engineer.Many of these will carry over across all of the positions including the TAM. Click here to refer back to those skills.
Technical Account Manager Day to Day
In your day-to-day, you will engage with clients, in-person and online. For new customers or newly launched products, you will need to be handling the implementation and integration with the client’s technical team.
You will also be working internally with the development team to follow any upcoming updates, bugs, patches, and new launches.
Additionally, you will be in constant contact with the sales team, specifically, the Account Manager, with whom you share the accounts.
Creating onboarding programs and training also falls under your responsibilities as a Technical Account Manager.
Now, how do you get a job as a TAM?
How to get a Technical Account Manager Job
There are a few paths that can lead to Technical Account Management.
The first is to start in Account Management and gain the experience of taking care of customers and working with the product. Over time your knowledge will deepen and your ability to effectively service customers will as well. This will give you an easy way to move into Technical Account Management and go even further in depth with the product.
The second is to start as Technical Support and gain experience handling issues for customers while learning more about the product. From here you will need to make your desire to move into a TAM role known and follow up with any training offered by your company to move in that direction.
Another would be to come from an engineering background and make the transition by learning the soft skills above to better serve the clients.
FAQ
What is the difference between Technical Account Manager and Technical Support?
The two names sound similar, but the TAM needs to be more involved in proactively handling client issues and assessing client needs. It is your job as a TAM to make sure that the problem is taken care of before it even happens.
Technical support is reactive to the issues that customers are experiencing. In other words, as technical support you are passive, waiting for issues to come up.
What is the difference between a Technical Account Manager and an Account Manager?
The main difference between a TAM and an AM is that as a Technical Account Manager you will need to be handling the technical issues that customers might experience with the product. You will also need to handle implementation and onboarding from a technical standpoint.
As an Account Manager, on the other hand, you are focused on the commercial aspects of the solutions, such as how much revenue is being generated from your tool.
These two positions will act as the bridge between the technical teams and the commercial teams.
As a TAM, the Account Manager will inform you when the client is having a technical issue, you will then meet with the client to assess their needs, and take those needs back to the technical teams or solve the issue yourself.
Interested in working as a Technical Account Manager? Message us today!
Technical Support
Alternative Titles: Technical Support, Technical Support Engineer, Customer Support Engineer, Customer Support, Product Support, Product Support Specialist
What is Technical Support?
Your customers are facing issues, you are their solution.
You will support your customers with any technical issues they are facing.
As a Technical support engineer, you are the first responder for any errors, bugs, or other issues that your customers are dealing with.
You will need to respond quickly, identify the issue, and solve it or escalate it to someone that can.
This will involve troubleshooting, answering questions, and responding to tickets.
Hard Skills
Engineering Skills and Product Knowledge
The depth of engineering skills you need will depend on your company’s product.If the product itself is used by engineers, such as Github or CircelCI, then you will be expected to have full stack coding experience to effectively support the customer base.
However, if the product is more general, like Microsoft and Adobe, then they will be training you on the specific product you will be supporting. At these companies, the in-depth technical skills will be less of a focal point because you can escalate the issues to the actual development team working within the company.
Soft Skills
Communication
Technical support engineer positions will require you to do direct troubleshooting by yourself, which means effective communication is a necessary skill.You will need to gain the trust of frustrated and at times panicked customers in the first few minutes of a call, and guide them through the troubleshooting process while answering any questions that come up during the troubleshooting.
Passion for helping customers
The customers you are talking to will often be in a less than calm state of mind, to be successful as Technical Support, you will need to be passionate about helping people.Often these skills can come from working in previous customer service roles.
Technical Support Day to Day
As a Technical Support, your days will vary depending on the issues that your customers are facing.
Generally, your company will have a ticketing system, these tickets are errors that the clients are encountering and issues they need resolved. As a Technical Support, it will be your responsibility to handle these claims.
Depending on how technical the position is, it could take days or weeks for you to resolve because you will need to solve the bug in the system by yourself or escalate this issue to the development team.
How to Get a Technical Support Job
The most important thing is the willingness and passion for solving problems for other people.
You may be interacting with serval clients, but each client is only interfacing with you.
Empathy is critical, you need to be mindful of the fact that if the system is not working for the client, that is a huge problem for their business.
If you can demonstrate these skills and your willingness to learn the ins and outs of a product, you should be able to get a TS job with ease.
Looking for a new Technical Support role? Message us today!
These last two roles are not exactly Engineering roles and not always client facing, however, there are times when they can be a Client Facing Engineering position.
Product Manager
What is a Product Manager?
As a Product Manager, it is your responsibility to make sure that all the tasks involved with product development are on track, delivered on time, and in an order that makes the most sense.
You will be taking care of the product cycle, the early stage of the product to testing, integration, and deployment.
Beyond that you need to always be looking ahead and ideating one how to grow the product, scale, what features to add, etc.
This becomes client facing when there are stakeholders from outside of your current company involved. In this situation, you will be working with the customers to drive the product requirements and features.
A Product Manager Role is not that technical, it is more about overseeing the direction of the product, the marketing, the design, new features, and so on.
Skills
Hard Skills
Project Management Tools
This should be obvious, but for those just starting to research, as a Product Manager, you are overseeing a lot of moving parts.Tools such as Jira, Trello, Monday.com, and Asana were built to help smooth out that oversight.
It will be crucial to have experience using any of these tools.
Data
As a PM, you need to make sure that all your decisions about the product are driven by data. You will need to be able to read the data and see the trends, then decide if that new feature is really worth it.Languages to learn include SQL, R, and Python.
You don’t need to master all of them, but a good foundation will set you up for success as a PM.
UI/UX
Design will not be a required skill for all PM’s but if you are going to be leading a product team, then it will be useful to have the user in mind always.
Soft Skills
Communication
As a PM, you are the hub that sits between the business teams, the dev team, the design team, and any other stakeholders. This will require you to have excellent communication skills.You need to be able to speak the language that connects with your audience and motivates them.
Agile Methodology
Leading the product development means Agile.Having an understanding of Scrum or Kanban will help thing deliver on time and keep things on track.
Prioritization
To be an effective Product Manager you will need to know the best ways to build a product, which means deciding where the urgency and priority are.
Day to Day
In your day to day, you will be meeting with all stakeholders, this will include your team, the design team, the business leaders, and any external stakeholders.
At the start of a new product development cycle, you will need to build out the product roadmap and make adjustments as things change through out the product life cycle.
You will also be handling any updates from your team as to when they can deliver and working with the business leaders to make decisions about the direction of the product.
You will be acting as the center point and filter, deciding what is realistic, a viable timeline, and what should be the priority.
How to Get a Job as a Product Manager
This can be an entry level position, but generally we have seen people coming from an engineering background, a design background, or a business background.
The basic requirement for this role is to understand the product lifecycle in a deep way from almost any perspective.
Some companies will prefer a Technical background, some a design background, others a marketing background.
The best thing to do is to study how products are developed and connect your experience to the skills required to get product made.
Interested in working as a Product Manager? Message us today!
Project Manager
What is a Project Manager?
As a Project Manager, you will be responsible for delivering the project on time. The scope of a project can vary, but you will need to motivate your team by setting milestones, delivering quick wins, and achieving long term goals.
You will not be coding, however, you will be leading a team of technical and non technical members to make sure that the project is completed on time.
This role is not always client facing, unless there are outside stakeholders involved. If there are, then part of your job will be to manage expectations, update the customer, and handle the delivery of the project.
Skills
Hard Skills
Project Management Tools
This one is a given. You need to have expertise in at least one project management tool or better yet a stack of tools that all work together.These can include Jira, Trello, Asana, or Monday.com
Data
As a Project Manager, you need to make sure that all your decisions about the product are driven by data. You will need to be able to read the data and see the trends, then decide if that new feature is really worth it.Languages to learn include SQL, R, and Python.
You don’t need to master all of them, but a good foundation will set you up for success as a PM.
UI/UX
Design will not be a required skill for all PMs but if you are going to be leading a product team, then it will be useful to have the user in mind always.
Soft Skills
Communication
According to the Project Manager’s Institute 75-90% of your role as a PM is communication. As a PM, you are the hub that sits between the business teams, the dev team, the design team, and any other stakeholders. This will require you to have excellent communication skills.You need to be able to speak the language that connects with your audience and motivates them.
Agile Methodology
Leading the product development means Agile.Having an understanding of Scrum or Kanban will help deliver tasks on time and keep things on track.
Negotiation
This might seem surprising as this is not a sales role, but often the position of Project Manager is a contract role, and you will need to negotiate your contract with your client.Organization
As a Project Manager you will almost always have too much on your plate. Tracking across various projects, setting priorities, communicating with team members, and reporting to stake holder will get overwhelming. Which is why you need to be on the top of your organizational game.
Day to Day
Meetings, meetings, meetings. As I mentioned in the skills section, it is estimated that your day as a Project Manager will be 75-90% communicating.
On average, you will be mostly coordinating with your product and engineering counterparts going over the strategy, providing status updates, looking to the future of the product and deciding what comes next.
However, you will also be coordinating between engineering teams, Product Managers, Technical Product Managers, Sales, Marketing, the C-Suite, and external stakeholders.
How to get a job as a Project Manager
There are many levels of project management and each has its own scope of projects that you would handle. Because of this, you can get a PM job as a new grad or with very little experience.
There are also many project management certifications online, and although these have varying degrees of usefulness, what it does show is your drive to learn and work as a Project Manager.
If you are currently an engineer, then ask your PM if there are tasks you can offload from their plate, suggest that you own part of the project and that you will be responsible for all things related to that.
FAQ
What is the difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager?
The difference between a Product Manager and a Project Manager comes down to the scope of the roles. As a Product Manager, you will be making decisions that effect the direction of the product features, updates, future products, etc.
A Project Manager is focused on making sure everything is moving according to the plan and ensure that any changes to the plan are taken care of.
Interested in working as a Project Manager? Message us today!
Conclusion
There you have it, the top 10 client-facing engineering roles explained.
To play us out, I want to go over a few things that are common among all of these positions.
Communication is a need to have skill for every client facing role.
Data is ubiquitous throughout any modern tech position.
Coding is table stakes at this point.
Client Facing Engineer positions are generally seen as a step up on the career ladder for any engineer.
I hope this helps and if you are interested in applying to become a Client Facing Engineer, please message us here!
Glossary
Agile - A methodology of software development that has become a replacement for the waterfall model
API - Application Programming Interface
CFE - Client Facing Engineer
Cloud - Storage in multiple servers across the globe rather than in a single on location server
CRM - Customer Relationship Manager
CSM - Customer Success Manager
Implementation - The process of connecting your solution to the technology of your customers
Kanban - A visual framework for Agile software development
PM - Project Manager
PM - Product Manager
POC - Point of Contact
POC - Proof of Concept
POT - Proof of Technology
PSS - Product Support Specialist
SA - Solutions Architect
SC - Solutions Consultant
Scrum - A model of agile development focused on faster releases and iteration
SE - Sales Engineer
SE - Solutions Engineer
TAM - Technical Account Manager
Technical Demo - a demonstration of the technical integration and requirements for implementing a solutions
TSS - Technical Support Specialist
TS - Technical Support
UI/UX - User Interface / User Experience
