Comment Re:Translation Time! (Score 1) 331
I couldn't agree more. Sales is not some evil thing that slimy boards make companies do -- its actually the reason that the company is around in the first place. If you dont think that's right -- stay in school and do research.
My best experiences on the tech side were riding shotgun with sales. That is how you figure out what features are needed to close a deal vs which seem technically interesting.
On the question of comp -- which is how this thread started -- its all about risk / reward. Technical people probably have a higher base comp than sales people -- sales people are comfortable having more at risk based on performance.
If a sales / tech partnership is working well -- and a sales guy is hitting his numbers -- than comp may be similar after commission. If the sales guy is hitting it out of the park -- then his comp is going to be larger than his tech counterpart.
so - if the tech base salary is already pretty high -- I wouldn't have that much of a delta based on successful sales -- perhaps 10-15 percent ( of salary ) based on good performance on the sales team -- if the tech person thinks they are getting ripped off in this -- they should move to sales where more is at risk -- but the sky is the limit on comp -- I have seen that happen and work well.