“Should more EAs become technical sales professionals?” by Patrick Hoang

Sales is rarely discussed as a career path in EA. This post explores whether technical sales roles — especially B2B Sales Engineering — might be a fast, high-leverage path for building career capital. It compares sales to other roles, and makes the case that sales deserves more serious attention from EA students and professionals. Depth: Medium. I am just a college student but I believe this could provide significant value. (I completed a sales bootcamp a month ago, and spent good time reflecting and connecting to SEs on LinkedIn. I'll try not to let recency/optimism bias hit me but it inevitably will). I'll use "sales engineer" and "technical sales" interchangeably. Companies have a lot of names for sales roles, but fundamentally they do the same thing: bring in revenue. Introduction Imagine you asked high school and university students what they wish to do with their careers. Maybe they want [...] ---Outline:(01:03) Introduction(02:07) What is B2B Sales?(02:38) Marketing(03:40) B2C Sales(04:43) B2B Sales(06:48) Why do B2B Sales?(07:07) Building Career Capital(07:30) Time Management & Prioritization(08:45) Communication(09:25) Relationship Building(10:02) Networking(10:49) Earning to Give Potential(12:10) Pivoting Potential(14:30) Why not do B2B Sales?(14:34) You might not perform well.(15:48) You could sell for a bad industry.(17:16) Sales is not prestigious or EA-coded.(18:46) You could be locked into golden handcuffs(19:42) EA is Sales(20:52) Learning More & Next Steps(21:01) Testing your fit (Fast, low-risk)(22:16) Explore Further Resources(23:01) Lets Talk--- First published: June 20th, 2025 Source: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Y6oAgAfpvwegLB4J7/should-more-eas-become-technical-sales-professionals --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.