Lakshya

Technical Go-To-Market · Chapter 1 of 6

Four jobs that look like one

Sales engineer, forward deployed engineer, technical account manager, customer success. Different phases, different measures, frequently confused.

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Technical go-to-market is 1,426 postings in this atlas and the titles are used loosely enough that candidates routinely interview for the wrong job. Customer-facing language appears in 99% of them and technical depth in 60% — these are genuinely technical roles where the deliverable is a customer's decision rather than merged code.

ONE CUSTOMER JOURNEY, FOUR DIFFERENT JOBS BEFORE THE SALE Sales / Solutions Eng prove it can work demo, POC, objections measured on: deals won DURING Forward Deployed Eng make it work here build the integration measured on: go-live AFTER, TECHNICAL Technical Account Mgr keep it working escalations, roadmap measured on: health AFTER, COMMERCIAL Customer Success make them renew adoption, expansion measured on: retention 1,426 postings. Customer-facing language in 99% of them, and technical depth in 60%. These are engineering jobs where the deliverable is a customer's decision rather than merged code — which is why engineers dismiss them and why they are chronically under-competed relative to pay. Establish which phase a role sits in before you interview. The four are measured on completely different things.
One customer journey, four jobs, four different measures. Establish which phase a role sits in before you interview — being measured on deals won, on go-live, on account health or on renewal rate produces completely different days and completely different interviews.

The questions that establish which job it actually is

  • “What number am I measured on?” Deals influenced, time to go-live, account health, net revenue retention. The answer settles almost everything else.
  • “Do I have a quota, and is it individual or shared?” Quota appears in a third of these postings, and a shared quota is a very different job from an individual one.
  • “Do I write code that ships?” Some of these roles commit to the product; some build throwaway demos; some never open an editor.
  • “How much travel, as a percentage?” Travel is named in 38% and ‘as needed’ is not an answer.
  • “Am I pre-sales or post-sales?” Frequently unstated in the posting and it determines your rhythm, your compensation structure and your exits.

Why these roles are under-competed

Engineers dismiss them as ‘sales’, and salespeople cannot do the technical half. That leaves a narrow pool for roles that pay comparably to engineering, involve real technical work, and have a much shorter path to seniority because the impact is legible to the business.

The honest trade: you will spend a large share of your time in conversations rather than in code, and if that drains rather than energises you, no amount of compensation fixes it.

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