I recently had the chance to speak at the University of South Carolina's CSIET program. Here is everything we covered, from real salary numbers to exactly how to break in, the lecture I wish someone had given me before I graduated.
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A few months ago, the University of South Carolina reached out and asked if I wanted to partner with their CSIET program, the Carolina Sales Institute for Engineering and Technology. I said yes immediately. Not because I needed another speaking gig, but because this is exactly the kind of conversation I wish I had been part of when I was an engineering student at Auburn University. Nobody told me about tech sales. I had to stumble into it after three years in a career I already knew was not right for me. What you are about to read is the full breakdown from that session, including Q&A from the students, real salary numbers, and the exact playbook for breaking in.
I graduated with an engineering degree and took a $65,000 job. I thought I was killing it. A year in, I got a 2.7% raise. Around the same time, I started meeting people in Austin who had gone into sales without engineering degrees and were making numbers that seemed impossible. I assumed they were exaggerating. They were not. That was my introduction to tech sales, and it came years too late.
When I asked the room at USC how many people knew the difference between an SDR and a Sales Engineer, almost no hands went up. That is not a knock on the students. That is just the reality of how universities are built. There is no Tech Sales 101. No career fair booth explains the compensation structure. And most advisors have never worked in it. If you are hearing about this career for the first time right now, you are not behind. You just did not have the right information until now.
Tech sales is the sale of software as a service, or SaaS. When a company with even 50 to 100 employees evaluates new software, it is a complex process involving multiple stakeholders, budget approvals, technical evaluations, and contract negotiations. Tech sales reps manage that entire process on behalf of the software company. The bigger the company buying the software, the more complex the deal, and the higher the comp.
This is not selling something off a shelf. You are working with directors, VPs, and C-suite executives at organizations with tens of thousands of employees, helping them make decisions that directly impact how their business runs. That complexity is exactly why the pay is high, and why technical backgrounds translate so well into this career.
I walked the USC students through three roles in detail because these are the entry points that matter most for engineering and technical backgrounds.
SDR (Sales Development Representative) is the most common entry-level role. You are doing outbound prospecting: cold calls, emails, LinkedIn outreach. Your job is to book meetings for Account Executives. It is a high-volume, high-skill-building role. If you perform, you can promote in 12 to 18 months. Comp ranges from $75,000 to $120,000, split roughly 65% base and 35% commission.
Account Executive (AE) is where you own the full sales cycle: discovery, demos, negotiation, and close. Here is what the progression actually looks like. SMB Account Executive earns $120,000 to $170,000. Mid-Market Account Executive earns $150,000 to $230,000. Enterprise Account Executive earns $275,000 to $350,000+, and that number has been climbing fast with the AI market. At the enterprise level, pay is 50% base and 50% commission. In a great year, top enterprise reps at companies like Palo Alto Networks, Oracle, or Datadog can clear $1,000,000 on a W2. I have not hit that yet personally, but colleagues of mine have. It typically takes seven to ten years and requires you to be performing at the top of your quota consistently. I share that number not to hype you up, but because as engineering students, most of you are not aware that this kind of outcome exists in sales.
Sales Engineer (SE) is the hybrid role for people with deep technical backgrounds. You come in after a prospect is already interested and help them technically validate the product through custom demos, scoping, and trial oversight. It is not entry-level. You typically need three to five years of engineering experience before making this move. Comp starts around $150,000 and grows to $220,000 to $275,000 as a senior SE. The commission component is smaller, around 20% of total pay, which means more stability but less ceiling. A friend of mine started at SpaceX, spent five to seven years on the manufacturing side, and transitioned into sales engineering. He is doing extremely well. But the path requires that engineering foundation first.
One of the most honest moments in the USC session was when a student said that switching to sales after studying engineering felt like getting overprepared for a role you could have gotten with a business degree. I told him: I felt the exact same way. And I was wrong.
Your engineering background is not wasted in tech sales. It is a competitive advantage. I spent three years in engineering, installed the antenna system in Mercedes-Benz stadium, worked 60 to 80 hour weeks on site, flew from Atlanta to Mexico City for a Team USA handball tournament and came straight back to work Monday morning. I can do hard things. But I had zero motivation to keep doing that work because it was not right for me. When I switched to tech sales, that same drive and technical credibility became the foundation of everything I built.
Companies selling cloud infrastructure, AI platforms, and security software want reps who can actually talk to engineers and CTOs without faking it. That fluency shortens sales cycles, builds trust faster, and opens doors that non-technical reps cannot walk through. You have already done the hard part. Do not let the sunk cost of the degree stop you from using it in a different way.
One of the students at USC said something that I thought was exactly right: you have to do the job to get the job. That is the whole framework. Simply applying online and showing up to a career fair with a generic resume is not going to get you into a top company in this market. The students at that session who had already landed opportunities were the ones cold messaging people, cold calling hiring managers, and doing research before every conversation. That is what the job requires, and demonstrating it during the hiring process is how you get hired.
Here is the baseline approach. Identify the companies you want to work for. Go beyond whatever is on LinkedIn and Handshake. Use your alumni network. Use Apollo.io to find direct contact information for recruiters, hiring managers, and current SDRs. If there is an active job listing, apply to it immediately so your information is in the system. Then reach out directly.
I shared my own example from Auburn. AT&T came to campus and had a booth at the career fair. There were twenty students clustered around the engineer who was showing off an antenna. The recruiter was standing two feet away, completely alone. I walked up to her and said: I saw AT&T has a new grad business development program and I am really interested in it. I would love to learn more about what you are looking for. She did not ask me a single question. She scanned me into an interview in Atlanta for the following week. That is still the game. The level of effort required has increased, but the principle has not changed.
One of the students in the session shared an example that I thought was textbook. He was targeting Oracle NetSuite for an internship. A mutual connection knew an account manager at Oracle. He messaged that person a few times, did not get a response. Then his friend mentioned the guy was free around 5 p.m. on a Tuesday, so he cold called him at 5:20. His opening line referenced the mutual connection, acknowledged the cold call directly, kept the whole conversation under two minutes, and booked a Zoom meeting. He followed up with an agenda that covered four specific topics, including Oracle's sales cycle and how to build relationships in the role. That sequence, a referral hook, a short call, a structured follow-up, is exactly what effective outreach looks like.
A few principles that work consistently. First, if a job is listed, apply and then reference it immediately in your outreach. Tell the hiring manager you applied this morning. It tells them your resume is already in the system and signals that you are already doing the work. Second, do not just message recruiters. Reach out to current SDRs at the company. They are approachable, they know the team, and a good conversation with them can turn into an internal referral. Third, start building relationships before you need them. If you are a year out from graduating, connect with alumni now. By the time you are ready to apply, you will not be starting cold.
This came up in Q&A at USC and I think it is one of the most practical things I covered. The average SDR is making 40 cold calls and sending 70 emails a day. Every call that converts into a meeting creates a significant administrative requirement: write up notes, draft the calendar invite and agenda, message the account executive you booked for, and log the opportunity in Salesforce with everything you discovered on the call.
If you build a custom GPT or project in ChatGPT that takes a call transcript and parses all of that out automatically, you get seven to ten minutes back per converted call. That is not a lot until you multiply it across a full week of activity. Those minutes turn into additional calls, additional meetings, and a measurable performance gap between you and peers who are still doing it manually. Tools to know: ChatGPT with a custom project for transcript parsing, Apollo.io for finding contact data and phone numbers, and promptcowboy.ai for building out detailed prompts quickly. The reps who automate the administrative layer of the job early are consistently the ones at the top of the leaderboard.
A student asked about follow-up frequency during the job search, and this is something I have a clear answer on. Three to four touches spread across the week is the standard that gets responses. We actually partnered with Elise AI on a campaign and their hiring manager told us directly: it is the candidate who runs a full sequence respectfully who gets noticed. Here is the framework I walked through at USC using Monday as the starting point.
Monday morning: apply to the role, send LinkedIn messages to the recruiter, the hiring manager, and a current SDR. Monday afternoon: call the recruiter and hiring manager. Leave a voicemail if they do not pick up. Wednesday: follow up on every message that has not received a response, and call the recruiter and manager again. Friday: send a final follow-up email in the morning, then call in the afternoon. A specific timing note: the 3 to 5 p.m. window in the prospect's local time zone tends to produce better pickup rates, especially for managers with families. An unknown number during school pickup hours can actually work in your favor. Consistent, professional follow-up is not spam. It is a live demonstration of the exact skills required for the role you are applying for.
One of the students at USC was a finance and marketing major. He had interned at an accounting firm and helped evaluate AI audit tools during his internship. He asked whether he could break into tech sales without a software background. I told him yes, and more than that, I told him to specifically target fintech companies because his accounting background makes him a better-fit SDR for those buyers than most engineering students in the room. The SDR role is open to almost any background if you can demonstrate the skills through your outreach. What matters is your ability to communicate in the language of the buyer, do the work of outreach, and show up prepared. Domain knowledge accelerates all of that.
Q: Do I need an engineering degree to break into tech sales?
A: No. The SDR role is open to candidates from almost any background. Technical degrees help when selling complex products to technical buyers, but what matters most is your ability to do effective outreach and communicate value clearly.
Q: Can I break into tech sales as a finance or accounting major?
A: Yes. Fintech companies in particular will value that background because you understand the buyer's world better than most candidates. Target companies whose products serve the industry you already know.
Q: What is the difference between an SDR and a Sales Engineer?
A: An SDR does outbound prospecting and books meetings. A Sales Engineer comes in after a prospect is already interested and helps them technically evaluate the product. SDR is entry-level and open to most backgrounds. Sales Engineer typically requires three to five years of engineering experience first.
Q: How long does it realistically take to reach six figures in tech sales?
A: Most SDRs hit six figures within 12 to 18 months, either through base plus commission or by promoting to an SMB AE role. Top performers at the enterprise level can reach $250,000 to $350,000 within four to five years.
Q: What should I do today to start breaking in?
A: Identify five to ten companies you want to work for. Find a current SDR or AE at each one on LinkedIn. Send a specific, researched message asking for 15 minutes. Apply to any open roles at the same time. That combination of direct outreach and formal application is the baseline that gets traction.
If you are exploring tech sales and want to see exactly what the career looks like before committing, start with our free lesson at Higher Levels. It covers the career path, earning potential, and what the day-to-day actually involves, no fluff, no pressure.
If you are ready to break in and want a structured program to help you land your first role at a top company, Tech Sales Ascension is our flagship program. It is built specifically for people making the move into tech sales, with a track record of placing thousands of reps at companies like Oracle, Salesforce, Palo Alto Networks, and more. Visit higherlevels.com/tech-sales-ascension to get started.
And to everyone at USC, the CSIET program, Raj, Dylan, Darian, and the rest of the team who made that night happen: thank you. It was genuinely one of the better rooms I have been in. The students there are already doing the work. I hope this post gets the conversation to a few more people who needed to hear it.
Last updated: March 2026
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