EA Forum Podcast (All audio) “Should more EAs become technical sales professionals?” by Patrick Hoang
Sales is rarely discussed as a career path in EA. This post explores whether technical sales roles — especially B2B Sales Engineering — might be a fast, high-leverage path for building career capital. It compares sales to other roles, and makes the case that sales deserves more serious attention from EA students and professionals.
Depth: Medium. I am just a college student but I believe this could provide significant value. (I completed a sales bootcamp a month ago, and spent good time reflecting and connecting to SEs on LinkedIn. I'll try not to let recency/optimism bias hit me but it inevitably will).
I'll use "sales engineer" and "technical sales" interchangeably. Companies have a lot of names for sales roles, but fundamentally they do the same thing: bring in revenue.
Introduction
Imagine you asked high school and university students what they wish to do with their careers. Maybe they want [...]
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Outline:
(01:03) Introduction
(02:07) What is B2B Sales?
(02:38) Marketing
(03:40) B2C Sales
(04:43) B2B Sales
(06:48) Why do B2B Sales?
(07:07) Building Career Capital
(07:30) Time Management & Prioritization
(08:45) Communication
(09:25) Relationship Building
(10:02) Networking
(10:49) Earning to Give Potential
(12:10) Pivoting Potential
(14:30) Why not do B2B Sales?
(14:34) You might not perform well.
(15:48) You could sell for a bad industry.
(17:16) Sales is not prestigious or EA-coded.
(18:46) You could be locked into golden handcuffs
(19:42) EA is Sales
(20:52) Learning More & Next Steps
(21:01) Testing your fit (Fast, low-risk)
(22:16) Explore Further Resources
(23:01) Lets Talk
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First published:
June 20th, 2025
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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.