Tech sales isn't one job. A software company's sales team is a relay: one person finds the customer, another closes the deal, another keeps them happy. Here's who does what.
SDR / BDR: starts the conversation
Finds potential customers and books meetings with them. The classic first job in tech sales, and the one most open to people without experience. More on what SDRs do.
- Good fit if: you're coachable, you can handle hearing no, and you want a fast path into sales.
- Typical next step: Account Executive after 12–24 months.
Account Executive (AE): closes the deal
Takes the meetings SDRs book, runs discovery and demos, negotiates and signs. AEs are usually split by customer size: SMB (small businesses), mid-market and enterprise. Most AEs start in SMB.
- Good fit if: you like running a whole conversation and you're motivated by commission.
- Pay: often a 50/50 split between base and commission, with OTE well above SDR pay.
Sales engineer (SE): the technical expert
Also called solutions engineer or solutions consultant. Works next to the AE on the technical side: answers hard questions, builds tailored demos, runs trials (POCs).
- Good fit if: you're technical (engineering, IT, support, data) and you like people. Many SEs never worked in sales before.
- Note: less cold outreach, more preparation and problem-solving.
Customer Success Manager (CSM): keeps customers
Owns a set of existing customers after they buy: onboarding, adoption, renewals, and noticing when they could use more. Measured on retention and growth (churn and NRR).
- Good fit if: you like long-term relationships more than cold outreach. Teachers, account managers and support folks often thrive here.
- We only list CSM roles that are tied to revenue (renewals and growth), not pure support jobs.
Sales manager and SDR manager: lead the team
Hire, coach and run a team of SDRs or AEs. You'll usually need a few years of doing the job first.
Sales enablement: trains the sellers
Builds onboarding, training and playbooks for the sales team. Often filled by former reps or by people from teaching and training backgrounds.
How people move between them
- SDR → AE is the most common path.
- SDR → sales engineer, if you're technical.
- SDR or AE → CSM, if you prefer relationships to hunting.
- Any of them → manager, after a few years of strong results.
Which one should you aim for first?
If you're new to sales, the SDR role is usually the realistic first step, and that's a good thing: it's where you learn the craft. If you're technical, look at sales engineering too. If cold outreach truly isn't for you, customer success has much less of it.
You can change which roles you see anytime in your answers.