Sales engineers are one of the least happy careers in the United States.
At CareerExplorer, we conduct an ongoing survey with millions of people and ask them how satisfied they are with their careers. As it turns out, sales engineers rate their career happiness 2.8 out of 5 stars which puts them in the bottom 19% of careers.
To put this into perspective, we compared how happy sales engineers are to similar careers in the industry. Take a look at the results below:
Salaries and satisfaction ratings in similar careers
| Career | Satisfaction | Avg Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Operations research analyst | 2.9 | $82k |
| Controller | 2.9 | $71k |
| Power engineer | 2.8 | $64k |
| Energy broker | 2.8 | $55k |
| Industrial production manager | 2.8 | $103k |
| Sales engineer | 2.8 | $104k |
| Risk management specialist | 2.8 | $73k |
| Civil engineer | 2.8 | $88k |
| Supply chain manager | 2.8 | $125k |
| Budget analyst | 2.8 | $80k |
So what does it mean to be happy in your career? Let’s break it down into different dimensions:
- Salary: Are sales engineers happy with their salary?
- Meaning: Do sales engineers find their jobs meaningful?
- Personality fit: How well suited are people’s personalities to their everyday tasks as sales engineers?
- Work environment: How enjoyable are sales engineer’s work environments?
- Skills utilization: Are sales engineers making the best use of their abilities?
Are sales engineers happy with their salary?
Sales engineers rated their satisfaction with their salaries 3.2/5. Few are explicitly unhappy with their salaries, with most sales engineers having generally positive views of their salary.
We asked sales engineers how fairly compensated they are for their work.
Their response was:
3.2 out of 5 stars
777 sales engineers
15% of sales engineers rated their compensation 5 stars
27% of sales engineers rated their compensation 4 stars
30% of sales engineers rated their compensation 3 stars
18% of sales engineers rated their compensation 2 stars
11% of sales engineers rated their compensation 1 stars
Do sales engineers find their jobs meaningful?
On average, sales engineers rate the meaningfulness of their work a 2.4/5. The majority of sales engineers struggle to find any sort of meaning in their work, likely resulting in less satisfaction with the career overall.
We asked sales engineers how meaningful they found their work.
Their response was:
2.4 out of 5 stars
776 sales engineers
7% of sales engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 5 stars
13% of sales engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 4 stars
25% of sales engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 3 stars
25% of sales engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 2 stars
30% of sales engineers rated how meaningful they found their career 1 stars
How well are people’s personalities suited to everyday tasks as sales engineers?
Sales engineers rated their personality fit with their work an average of 3.5/5. The majority of sales engineers find their personalities quite well suited to their work, with relatively few having complaints about their fit.
We asked sales engineers how well their personalities fit into their careers.
Their response was:
3.5 out of 5 stars
850 sales engineers
23% of sales engineers rated their career fit 5 stars
35% of sales engineers rated their career fit 4 stars
23% of sales engineers rated their career fit 3 stars
12% of sales engineers rated their career fit 2 stars
7% of sales engineers rated their career fit 1 stars
How enjoyable is a sales engineer’s work environment?
As a whole, sales engineers rated their enjoyment of their work environment 3.4/5. Most of them tend to enjoy, or at least not be actively bothered by, their work environment.
We asked sales engineers how much they enjoyed their work environment.
Their response was:
3.4 out of 5 stars
844 sales engineers
18% of sales engineers rated their work environment 5 stars
33% of sales engineers rated their work environment 4 stars
26% of sales engineers rated their work environment 3 stars
17% of sales engineers rated their work environment 2 stars
7% of sales engineers rated their work environment 1 stars
Are sales engineers making the best use of their abilities?
Former sales engineers on CareerExplorer have rated their skills utilization 2.8/5. Sales engineers tend to feel that they don’t manage to use their abilities to their fullest, when compared to other careers.
We asked sales engineers how well their abilities were used in their careers.
Their response was:
2.8 out of 5 stars
841 sales engineers
10% of sales engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 5 stars
22% of sales engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 4 stars
26% of sales engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 3 stars
26% of sales engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 2 stars
16% of sales engineers rated their how well their skills were utilized in their career 1 stars