Given my work experience, what should I do?

2 points by gtbcb 5 years ago | 1 comment

I'm 36, have a degree in engineering (biomedical, not software), an MBA, and went through a coding bootcamp. I've been at a high-growth B2B SaaS startup (Segment) for the past 5 years in various technical, customer-facing roles, most recently Sales Engineering and now a pure Sales / Account Executive role.

I made the move to Sales because I enjoyed the Sales Engineering role at the time, and thought I wanted more of the Sales side of things because 1) it's a more generalizable skill-set not tied to my company specifically, 2) more autonomy, 3) more earning potential, and 4) I thought it'd be more fun. I thought this would be my career path that I would be successful in and eventually grow into management.

The problem is that I'm not that good at it (yet). I'll probably get better, but will likely get fired before I really get up to speed. Part of this is on me, and part of it is the stage that the company.

I'm now having a bit of an existential crisis because of my age and not knowing what to do now. I could try Sales at another SaaS startup, but I've questioned that path as I don't relate to the average salesperson as well as more technical folks.

Going back to Sales Eng isn't exciting. Customer Success seems like a slog. Product could be an option, but unsure how good I'd be / I don't have product experience. I've always been interested in the startup scene, so the VC space is interesting, but no experience there / hard to break in to.

Given the space I've worked in, a job like Customer Data Platform manager would be a good fit, but limited opportunities there; also potentially a Growth or Analytics type role at another startup. I previously did analytics. I also feel a bit behind career-wise as I haven't managed people.

I thought I figured out a good path forward career-wise in Sales but realizing that I'm not as good as I thought has been a punch in the gut.

Any advice / types of jobs I should consider?

xupybd 5 years ago |

If you like sales I would keep going. You might find you are better at it than you think. There could be things specific to your current position that are not working for you.

You picked this for a reason. What was that reason? That drive that got you here in the first place can be re-kindled.

I found myself in a job, that I'd had for a long time. I was stuck. External situations made the job harder than it was previously (un happy customers) I didn't have the skill set to improve those situations. Looking back I should have just made that clear to management but I got let go and had to move on. Now I'm in a similar role but much happier. I make a real positive impact on the business here. I don't have the same dread of getting up and going to work.

Change can help, moving on might be a good thing for you.