There are a ton of titles in the software industry. Two slightly misleading ones are Solutions Engineer and Cloud Architect. These sound like technical roles but they are not on the software engineering career ladder. Solutions Engineer and Cloud Architect are pre-sales roles.
What is Pre-Sales?
Pre-Sales is the part of a project that happens before the sale. If you are selling a software product or digital transformation, you need someone technical to evaluate where the prospect’s software stack is. The Solutions Engineer is the technical expert who joins the sales team and helps build out what needs to be included in the deal. That entails researching the prospect’s tech stack, interviewing their engineers and doing technical demos for the potential client. Solutions Engineers sometimes need to travel to client offices as part of the job. You might do some coding to create demos and prototypes but that is about it. Don’t expect your technical skills to grow while working as a Solutions Engineer. But you will get lots of opportunities to interact with clients, make connections and learn about what different companies are doing on the tech side.
Then what is a Cloud Architect?
A Cloud Architect is a solutions engineer working with potential clients of public cloud services. A Cloud Architect would work with clients on what services they need and how to migrate their websites and services to the cloud. They will demo cloud services and help develop plans for customers to migrate their workloads to the cloud.
Why become a Solutions Engineer?
Becoming a Solutions Engineer is a great way for software engineers with decent social skills to move into a more sales focused role. You will have opportunities to present and learn about customers that you probably do not as an engineer on a product team.
Knowing more about the sales process can help you prepare to run your own agency or move up the corporate ladder on the business side.