[en] Presales Engineer: A Career Option Bridging Technology and Business

Original deck in Japanese: https://speakerdeck.com/toshihue/presales-engineer-career-bridging-tech-biz-ja

Event page: https://event.shoeisha.jp/devsumi/20250213/session/5594

Would you like to take a look into the world of presales engineering? A presales engineer is not just a demo resource, but an important bridge between technology and business, tackling problem-solving in a highly rewarding position.

Based on my experience as a presales engineer at a multinational company, I will comprehensively share the actual duties and ways of engaging with customers. Furthermore, I will explain the real level of English and technical skills required during interviews and after joining, sharing personal anecdotes. I will also address questions such as, "Is it okay if I’m not good at sales talk?" and "What skills can be leveraged?" You may even realize that many of the skills you already possess are closely related to presales.

I hope presales engineering can become a new step in your career journey.

#devsumi

Transcript

1. Presales Engineer: A Career Option Bridging Technology and Business Developers Summit 2025 2025.02.14 Toshitaka Ito Note: This deck, which was machine-translated into English, contains a lot of context related to pre-sales engineers at global tech companies in Japan, and it includes aspects that differ from the circumstances in other regions.
2. How I Came to Share This Topic 2 • I applied for an open call and surprisingly got accepted. • The importance of presales engineers is growing as new tech products and services emerge across both Japanese and international companies. ◦ Many presales engineers and related roles frequently speak at Developers Summit sponsor sessions. ▪ In other words, Developers Summit is supported by presales engineers! ◦ However, the role and required skill set are not widely understood. • Coming from a background in Japan’s large SIer companies, I wanted to share this topic to broaden awareness and energize the presales engineering community. • I also want to share insights from my approximately 7 years of experience in presales engineering. ◦ This session is designed for those unfamiliar with presales, rather than discussing how to be a good presales engineer. Note: This session is based on my experience in presales at US tech companies, so some aspects may differ from the cases in Japanese companies.
3. About Toshitaka Ito 3 Worked as an engineer at Nomura Research Institute, engaging in software development, project management, technology research, and overseas assignments. System Integrator Transitioned from DevSecOps to DataOps with approximately 7 years of experience as a presales engineer: 1. Black Duck Software: Joined the Sales Engineering team in Japan (8 members). 2. GitLab: First APAC Solutions Architect covering Japan and Taiwan. 3. dbt Labs: First APAC Solutions Architect covering Japan. Presales Engineer Presented “The Best Way to Work from What We Learned at GitLab” at Developers Summit 2022. Supervised books: • “The How-to Guide on Creating the World's Most Advanced Remote Organization” • “Documentation Techniques for Maximizing Performance” Publications about “The Best Way to Work” toshitaka-ito @toshihue
4. Agenda 4 1 What is a Presales Engineer? 2 The Reality of Presales Engineers 3 Compensation Models and Required English Proficiency 4 Is Presales Really an Engineering Role? 5 How to Prepare for Applying to Presales Roles 6 Conclusion
5. Continuous Relationship Building Ideal Sales Cycle & Role Relationships 5 Implementation Support & Adoption Facilitation Price Negotiation & Contract Closing Technical Evaluation Support & Proposal Problem Discovery Lead Qualification Lead Acquisition Sales Development Representative Sales Presales Engineer Customer Success Manager Professional Services Engineer <-- Pre-sales-- -- Post-sales --> Note: This varies depending on company policies and service characteristics. Marketing, partner-related roles, and post-sales-specific sales roles are omitted here. Support Engineer
6. What is a Presales Engineer? Common Misconceptions ◆ A consultant who can propose any solution to customers’ business challenges for a fee. What’s Needed ◆ A presales engineer is part of the sales team and proposes solutions centered on their company’s products and services. • Sometimes, deviating from company products strategically earns customer trust. ◆ A technical person whose role is simply to demonstrate products and services. ◆ A strategic partner who extracts and deeply understands both explicit and latent customer challenges with high clarity through discussions. • Shorter demos are considered a better approach ◆ Someone who must be good at talking and presenting. ◆ Being good at presentations and proposals is a plus, but the ability to extract customer challenges through discussions and a sincere attitude toward addressing them are even more important. • If a presales engineer speaks for 40 minutes in a one-hour discovery meeting, the meeting is a failure. 6
7. Value Provided as a Presales Engineer 7 1. Customer Business Challenges 2. Customer Technical Challenges 1. Capabilities of Company’s Services 2. Presales Business Knowledge 3. Presales Knowledge of Related Technologies A job that requires understanding products, related technologies, and customer challenges, finding the greatest overlap, and proposing solutions. Ability to make proposals Discovery
8. ◆ Sales Engineer ◆ Solutions Engineer ◆ Solutions Architect ◆ Customer Engineer ◆ Presales Engineer ◆ Solutions Consultant Common Job Titles and Career Paths for PreSales in Global IT Companies Common Job Titles in Global IT Companies Previous Job Titles and Career Experience ◆ Presales Engineer in a Global Company ◆ Post-sales Engineer in a Global Company • Roles such as Customer Success Manager, Technical Account Manager, and Professional Services Engineer ◆ System Engineer at an SIer or IT Consultant ◆ Technical professionals at resellers/partners who proposed relevant products or services to customer • The term “Presales Engineer” is often used as a general term. • Based on my experience, “Sales Engineer” is the most common title, listed here in order of frequency. • “Architect” in the title gives a more prestigious or sophisticated impression. (This is just my personal opinion.) All of these roles are within sales organizations, and recognizing them as part of the sales team is crucial. You Are in Sales! White, Chris. The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers (p. 39). • People with both customer-facing experience and technical expertise are highly sought after. ◦ Project management roles with a strong technical background also align closely with this field. ◦ Software engineers and infrastructure engineers often interact with “internal customers,” making these roles common career paths as well. 8
9. Key Duties of a Presales Engineer 9 • Introduction of products and services ◦ Varies by person, but sales often handle the high-level introduction. • Discovery meetings (hearing customer challenges) ◦ Includes customer visits. • Product and service demos • Solution proposals (demos and presentation materials) ◦ Challenging, but proposing new solutions allows for learning new technologies and architectures, making it enjoyable. • Leading and organizing customer PoCs and trials • Proposing evaluation criteria • Raising internal requests for product and service improvements • Introducing professional services (implementation and deployment support) • Following up on technical support tickets • Regular follow-ups after product or service purchase • Providing technical training for internal members • Conducting external and customer-facing seminars and workshops • Explaining at event booths (alongside other roles)
10. Positioning to Propose the Premium Option by Default 10 Basic For personal use $99/month 10Gb storage 1 account 5000 visitors / month Official support Standard For small team $199/month 500GB storage 10 accounts 10,000 visitors / month Official support Premium For enterprise $399/month 10TB storage Unlimited accounts Unlimited visitors Official support It is important to recognize that you are part of the sales organization. If you truly believe in the value your company’s solution provides, you should promote the premium option, even with some bias—as long as it remains truthful. If you cannot resonate with the value of the premium option, this job can be quite tough.
11. Continuous Relationship Building Reality of a Presales Engineer 11 Implementation Support & Adoption Facilitation Price Negotiation & Contract Closing Technical Evaluation Support & Proposal Problem Discovery Lead Qualification Lead Acquisition Sales Development Representative Sales Presales Engineer Customer Success Manager Professional Services Engineer <-- Pre-sales-- -- Post-sales --> Support Engineer The first two roles to be hired in a region When the organization is small and other roles have not yet been hired, this tends to happen… Additionally, when sales team members have a strong influence, this also tends to happen…
12. The Behind-the-Scenes Customers of a Presales • It’s the Sales Team ◦ The customers that sales prioritize are presales own top-priority customers. ◦ The decision on how to move forward with an opportunity is ultimately made by the account owner—the salesperson. ◦ A key mission for a presales engineer is to understand and leverage the following sales behaviors to build a strong relationship with the sales team. • Common Sales Behaviors ◦ Asking for the “usual standard demo” without conducting a discovery session. ◦ Sales have an instinct to convey the value of 10 as if it were 100, so presales must start thinking about managing expectations at some point ◦ Believing a 100k deal is actually a 500k deal. ◦ Communicating all customer and deal-related information verbally. ◦ Presales Life - 1.0 - YouTube - Presales life is hard 12 Note: The above is purely the author’s personal bias and does not represent all sales team members.
13. Compensation Model for Presales in Global Companies Commission Base Salary 60%–75% The amount is received monthly, divided by 12. Paid monthly based on the achievement of the previous month’s performance KPIs. Whether it is based on individual or team performance depends on the company. Equity Compensation Pre-IPO companies: Stock Options After going public: RSUs (Be cautious with tax filings) Note: You can check the salary range a company is likely to offer on Glassdoor. However, since the responses are predominantly US-based, a 30–50% reduction might be appropriate for positions in Japan. Ultimately, compensation is often considered relative to the candidate’s current salary. Also, some companies offer incentives (bonuses) based on annual individual performance rather than commission, which results in a higher base salary percentage. 13
14. English Proficiency for Interviews in Global Companies Example of the interview process for a Japan entity with fewer than 10 members Example of the interview process for a Japan entity with around 50 members 1. Recruiter interview (Japanese) 2. Hiring Manager interview (Japanese) 3. Technical interviews *2 (Japanese) 4. Sales team interview (Japanese) 5. Director/VP-level interview (English) 6. Demo interview (Japanese) 1. Recruiter interview (English) 2. Hiring Manager interview (English) 3. Technical interviews *2 (English) 4. Sales team interview (Japanese) 5. Director/VP-level interview (English) 6. Demo interview (English) 14 • It depends on the size and phase of the Japan organization. • If it’s not the first presales role in Japan, experience and the content of the background will be prioritized over English conversation skills. • The following are important to be able to answer in English: ◦ Self-introduction ◦ Being able to respond to questions, even briefly ◦ Being able to ask for clarification if you don’t understand or didn’t catch the question ◦ Being able to discuss work-related topics in English ▪ IT has many terms that are loanwords, so it’s somewhat easier
15. English Proficiency Required After Joining as a Presales Engineer 15 Will you be part of the APAC or global team rather than Japan? Will you also handle customers at overseas offices? Will you frequently interact with teams based overseas? English presentations and solution proposals. If you can’t understand your customer’s English, it’s game over. Let’s enjoy a few free English conversation lessons each week! Occasionally, you’ll have meetings in English, but you can manage with email and chat. Don’t worry—it’s almost the same as being in Japan, so you can leave your English hat at home! Yes No Yes No Yes No GitLab (at the time of joining) dbt Labs (assumed) GitLab (3 Years After Joining) Notes: Still responsible for overseas customers. Black Duck Software It depends on the size and phase of the Japan organization. If you’re not confident in your English conversation skills, it’s recommended to start with the case on the left side of the chart.
16. Is Presales Really an Engineering Role? Where are the engineers’ seats located? The real engineers are upstairs, but the sales engineers are on this floor. An episode from my first presales role: I traveled alone from Japan to the Boston office to receive product and sales training upon joining. I even experienced office life in a company space with a West Coast vibe (despite it being on the East Coast). Note: This was work-related! Me US SE Upon reflection, I recognize that I didn’t opt a purely technical engineering role; instead, I chose a technical position that has a more direct impact on the company’s performance. 16
17. Examples of the technical tasks I’ve undertaken 17 Resolved SSO authentication issues that even the post-sales and product teams couldn’t solve • I installed Windows Server on a virtual machine running on a laptop PC and set up Active Directory, then shared the detailed procedures with the customer. • Due to company restrictions that prevented the use of cloud services, the functionality verification took a full day. • As a result, I even mastered debugging SAML responses. 1 • I created and debugged the CI definition to ensure successful builds and tests. • I set up the environment and created Kubernetes manifests for deployment using the GitOps approach with a pull-based mechanism. • I embedded vulnerabilities in a sample application to ensure appropriate detection by various security testing tools. Created a workflow for deploying an OSS sample application to Kubernetes 2 • I haven’t done it yet. • I have no idea what it’s about, but I’m scheduled to present on it at next month’s webinar. • For today’s session, questions related to data pipelines, data warehouses, and ELT are off-limits. To create best practices for data flows using Data Mesh 3 Note: The level of technical expertise required really varies depending on the products and services provided by the company.
18. ◆ For a while, it will just be you and the sales memer in the region to establish the market. ◆ You’ll attend training sessions and internal events, and there will be quite a few overseas business trips. • Boston, Las Vegas, Bangkok, Taipei, Cebu, Cancun, and more. ◆ It’s fun, exciting, but the internal processes could be chaotic—still fun! ◆ It’s the best time to improve your English skills. ◆ It’s Pre-IPO! 🌟” The First Presales Engineer in the Region Benefits The reality is… ◆ If the service is something new to you, for a while, the customers and partners will likely know more about your company’s service than you do. • The author is currently diving into a new service for the third time in a row. ◆ Both presales and post-sales tasks, as well as professional services and marketing event planning support, are all done—in English. ◆ Before I knew it, I had completely skipped onboarding and, just a few days after joining, somehow found myself presenting ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ models in a customer meeting. ◆ In the end, there was no time for proper onboarding, and it felt like I had already completed the onboarding tasks and was thrown into real work. • As a result, the next presales hire (not just for Japan hires) ended up being overprotected during onboarding. ◆ Since the local entity hasn’t been established yet, I was actually a contract worker. • Being a consultant, acting like a presales engineer for the client company 18
19. 19 STEP 1 Create a LinkedIn account STEP 2 STEP 4 STEP 3 STEP 5 Use AI chat to write a well-crafted LinkedIn profile only in English and generate an English resume Respond if contacted by a recruiter from a company that’s hiring Create a response template for English interviews and practice with it If it’s a product or service you’re interested in, consider moving forward with the hiring process, even as practice The Path to Applying for a Presales Engineer Position at a Global Company Since many job recruiters will contact you, only respond to those who seem to have carefully read your profile. Of course, it’s even better to apply directly to positions that are publicly posted on LinkedIn. If you’re limiting it to large multinational companies, Bizreach might be a good option. (for Japan) Also, try to build connections with presales professionals if possible. Ask presales connections for feedback on the company’s reputation. If you don’t have any, check Glassdoor and Blind (though most posts are centered around the organizational environment in the US).
20. 20 You may wonder if you can get 100 LinkedIn connections It can be done in seconds! If you accept connection requests from job recruiters equally, 500+ connections will be a breeze. For those who don’t want that, let’s start by making me your only LinkedIn connection!
21. Conclusion 21 For those who enjoy proposing tech solutions to solve customer challenges, it’s the perfect job. I hope it can become a new career option for all of you. Presales Engineer is the best role 1 The level of technical skills required depends on the service being sold, while the level of English proficiency needed is correlated with the size of the company. Technical skills and English proficiency depend on the organization you join 2 Whether or not you become a presales engineer at a global company, build connections in the business world. Create a LinkedIn account first 3
22. Thank You!