Career
Sales engineers
Sell complex technical products by explaining how they work.
Here's what you actually need to know.
The work
What people in this job do
- Develop, present, or respond to proposals for specific customer requirements, including request for proposal responses and industry-specific solutions.
- Collaborate with sales teams to understand customer requirements, to promote the sale of company products, and to provide sales support.
- Create sales or service contracts for products or services.
- Visit prospective buyers at commercial, industrial, or other establishments to show samples or catalogs, and to inform them about product pricing, availability, and advantages.
- Keep informed on industry news and trends, products, services, competitors, relevant information about legacy, existing, and emerging technologies, and the latest product-line developments.
The outlook
How the forecast changed this year
AI
BLS now cites artificial intelligence in this occupation's outlook: “share decreases as artificial intelligence (AI) tools are increasingly integrated into workflows, allowing sales engineers to focus on direct sales activity.”
The deeper question
What kind of person does this path ask you to become?
What this work centers on
O*NET interest profile, scored 1–7.
The work
Do you want most of your days spent on persuasion & leadership, then information & systems?
Responsibility
Are you willing to be the one responsible for this?
“Develop, present, or respond to proposals for specific customer requirements, including request for proposal responses and industry-specific solutions.”
Development
What would you need to build over the next 5–10 years?
Speaking, Persuasion, Reading Comprehension, Judgment and Decision Making.
Trade-offs
What does it ask of you in exchange?
4 years of education after high school (bachelor's degree), for a median of $124,900 a year and 3,800 openings nationally each year.
Paths in
Degrees that lead here
- NO MATCHCIP 99.9999
Paths across
Careers that use similar skills
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products$104,920 · +1.2%
- Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel$69,990 · +2.7%
- Architectural and Engineering Managers$171,270 · +5.5%
- Logistics Engineers
- Industrial Engineers$102,440 · +12.4%
Ask anything about this career.
“Would this make sense if I don't want to sit at a desk all day?” Answers will come from the sources on this page, with citations. Coming soon.
Not sure this fits who you are? Start with Vocational Finder →
Sources
- BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- BLS Employment Projections, 2024–34 (archived), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- O*NET 31.0 Database (August 2026), National Center for O*NET Development / U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 Crosswalk, NCES and BLS. Retrieved 2026-10-01.