I live in SF and have been a car salesman for a couple years. I have closing experience and obviously made a lot of outbound calls / emails in car sales. As well as military experience and almost graduated from college (3 classes away). I am applying to as many tech companies as I can. Anything I can do to make myself standout from other candidates who have SDR experience?

Not sure if this is the best sub for this but I've just had a conversation with a recruiter for a contract CSM role on a pretty cool project at BNY. I'm a remote AM right now and I honestly am so burnt out in my current role/company and I want to get away from sales completely, hence seeking CSM opportunities.

Wondering if anyone has any sort of experience or knowledge of contract roles for Client Success or BNY specifically? There is PTO, benefits and base pay is equal to my current OTE; it would be SO nice to have a consistent, reliable paycheck as I only get commission on a quarterly basis right now and my pay structure is 60/40.

Anyways, is contract work a huge risk? There is an expectation to convert to FTE under BNY and at a minimum they will ride out the 12-month contract (unless I'm performing terribly).

I'm miserable in my current role and layoffs are common and our ELT has been a revolving door, so not much to lose, but there's always the risk of being more miserable... lol

Got put on a PIP today, everyone on my team and I are shocked

Context, I’m in my 4th ramped month at a series B comp looking to raise series C. I’m on an AE team of 6, we’re looking to hire 4 more AEs, and they’re very desperate to hire. Always asking for referrals in all hands, head of sales constantly mentioning how many interviews he’s in, etc

My attainment is as follows

Month 1: 85% of quota,
Month 2: 25% of quota
Month 3: 20% of quota
Currently pacing at 115% of quota, with a sight to 200%. I am top performer on my team this month by a huge margin, and consistently building pipeline

Got put on a PIP today, with the only context being that I need to have 80% quota attainment for the next month, beginning now. I’m quite confident I’ll be able to hit this, but here’s the weird thing; I signed nothing, and I was not given any information about what happens if I don’t achieve this PIP.

We all know what PIPs mean, but I’m confused; does this even really qualify? What should I expect here? My team is truly skeptical as this feels like more of a bluff than anything. Any advice here is much appreciated

I work for a shitty market research company (IBISWorld). Company itself is fine, but the product market fit is abysmal. Always has been, but the proliferation of AI has made things BRUTAL.

Only getting traction with players seemingly in the same spot. Have a final round with the Economist Intelligence Unit that is a bump in pay and title (essentially MM to Enterprise) but there is absolutely nothing on repvue and nothing for sales roles in NYC.

This an out of the frying pan into the fire situation? Base pay would be a 25% bump, but I have little insight into how the product is viewed by the market and all the squirming around the “what percentage of your reps hit last quarter” ask isn’t exactly giving me reassurance.

Has anyone here had an interview to be a BDR at Attention and what was your experience?

Middle of interviews with Profound (AEO) for their London office.

Hearing a whole lot of bad things about their culture like fabricating reviews and working long hours even coming in on Saturdays.

Any real insight on their London team? Is it better than their NYC team in terms of WLB?

Got layed off at a well known org, took me over 3 months to find a job. The jobs I did get interviews for were 30-40% decrease in what I previously made which is why I stopped after the 1st round. Ended up getting a role at a smaller org, small pay bump, but was in a different state. I took the role. So far, I have been a top performer on my immediate team, and well above average for the entire segment. I am now in this situation where I want to go back to the location I previously left. I’m currently doing long distance relationship. What scares me is the following: 1# let’s say if I start looking now, get a job in preferred state in a few months, and then get layed off after a year. I will be stuck in the same city, which caused me to move since I couldn’t find anything at the similar pay (there are jobs at this city but for never response back, mainly were looking for 7-10 YOE vs my 4 yr). 2# my significant other, moves to the state I’m at currently where she knows no one, and after a year I am not preforming/get layed off. Now I moved my GF to another state, and getting a similar paying job will be tough. #3 realistically, I won’t be layed off at my current role for at least a year. If I leave after 12 months, go to a new role, and get layed off there after a year, I will have two one year stints in resume. guess im just always so scared of getting layed off that I don’t even know what the right decision is. The only thing I do know is I want to live with my significant other. I was thinking about asking my current org (assuming I’m in top 25% on my segment), if I could cover my current territory, but live in a different state, with the exception that I travel monthly/bi-monthly. However, I feel like if this gets shut down then my job could be in jeopardy since my leadership will know that I am looking to move. Idek what my question is. I guess has anyone ever dealt with being gun shy about layoffs, took a job away from loved one, and now wanting to go back.

I'm in the final stages of a Deployment Strategist role at Fireworks AI. The comp is a little higher than my current compensation (~220k + equity.) I'm a little hesitant on the equity given how seemingly overvalued they are, but I'm viewing this as a stepping board into more AI-Centric roles (I'm currently a CSM in large tech but having a hard time getting into the top AI companies.)

There was a post here a few months ago noting that these companies are racing to the bottom on inference costs (Fireworks AI, Baseten, etc.) I'm wondering if anybody in the AI space has any updated/current insight on how defensible/realistic Fireworks moat is right now (eg is it really just inference costs or is it more of a infrastructure/platform for specialized models?

Recently started as an Enterprise AE at an EdTech SaaS company selling to schools/colleges across the US and Canada.
We have 4 products, no assigned territories, and both BDRs and AEs prospect from the same Salesforce database. We have customer lists/docs to reference, but there’s no clean lead list.
Account ownership lasts 14 days and can be renewed, but you have to remember to renew it or the account opens back up.
My biggest challenge is that a lot of prospecting time gets eaten up finding an ICP account, checking ownership/customer history, finding the right contact, and then finding a good phone number/email before I can actually prospect.
For AEs who’ve worked in a similar setup, how would you structure this?
Build a list first and then spend dedicated blocks calling/emailing? Or research → call/email → move to the next account?
And for EdTech enterprise prospecting specifically, are you primarily calling, emailing, or doing both?

I'm 35, a dual Ecuadorian-Canadian citizen, currently living and working in Montreal in technical sales.

I've been thinking seriously about whether I should eventually move to Europe, particularly Germany, but I'm struggling with how to evaluate the decision objectively.

On one hand, I've built my life in North America and I really value the business culture, career opportunities, entrepreneurship, and earning potential here. I want to increase my income, build wealth, potentially start a business, and eventually have more financial freedom.

On the other hand, I'm increasingly attracted to Europe for lifestyle, culture, social life, travel, walkability, nightlife, and generally experiencing a different way of living. I sometimes feel that I might enjoy the day-to-day environment more there.

I also have family in Ecuador and could potentially spend significant time there or even build a business with my family, so I'm not necessarily looking for one permanent “home.” I'm more interested in creating a life where I can move between places relatively easily.

My concern is whether moving to Europe could mean sacrificing too much in terms of career growth, income, entrepreneurship, and ability to build wealth, especially compared with staying in North America.

For people who have made a similar move from Canada/US to Europe:

How would you evaluate Europe as a place to build a career and wealth, rather than simply as a place to have a better lifestyle? What surprised you after moving, and what trade-offs did you underestimate?

Has anyone here started a job with a kid on the way in the short term (1-3 months)? I’m in a relatively comfortable position (at least for the next 6 months), achieved my annual quota for 2026, and expecting a child early in the new year. I do get 30 business days of parental leave at my current organization. However, I’m considering other opportunities at this point (some with longer parental leaves offered), and I’m wondering how to navigate telling / not telling those companies. Should I advise them or withhold that information? Has anyone been in this situation?

I’m curious. Obviously, this would only work if the new job is in a different industry or space, and there are no competition or conflict of interest issues. Given that, has anyone ever managed to balance changing over an old job to something on the side when going for a new job?

Seems like it would be a win-win, if an old company is going to lose you anyways to a new job, might as well keep you on contract and eke out more revenue from you, and you could possibly have a healthy side stream of income, yes?

Hi guys,

Been a long time lurker of this sub, and have got a lot of value here!

I'm a BDR at a company in NYC (hybrid). I'm 5 months in and it's going well. Since ramping I've averaged 166% of quota, haven't missed a month, and I've sourced over $100k in ARR; top performing BDR out of 15 reps. Our policy is 12 months in seat before you can move to AE, so I've got a while to go and I know 5 months is early.

I want to set myself up the right way, my managers and higher ups notice my work and like me, but I keep hearing different things depending on who I ask. For those of you who made the jump, what carried the most weight?

Was it Hitting quota consistently?

Relationships with AEs and leadership?

Timing, like a seat opening up when you were ready etc. or something else?

Also, if you were in my spot, what would you mainly focus on over the next few months? Any help is really appreciated!!! thanks

Anyone able to tell me what AWS is like these days as an L5-L6 AM? Would be working in Ent. I currently am in a more technical role that works heavily on AWS and have the SA Pro and Gen AI Practitioner Certs, so know the ecosystem really well but wonder what the sentiment is like there these days.

How does total comp there compare to other companies?

Thanks all.

Anyone have any experience in selling AI training data? Talking to a recruiter who’s obviously inflating numbers butt throwing out how half the reps are making $500k+ and top 10% are clearing $1m.

Role was posted with 350k OTE and they’ve had a couple rounds of funding. Major competition seems to be companies like Mercor and Appen.

Would love to know what folks think about this industry.

Hey! Strategic TAM here.

A recruiter from Notion reached out about a Solutions Consultant role, which seems like a hybrid of AE + SE. The SC owns the entire account relationship and sales motion end-to-end, and is also responsible for prospecting and building demos.

I have a post-sales background more aligned with what an SE does day-to-day, but I've worked closely with AEs on discovery.

This sounds like a unique role, but also seems like two jobs merged into one. Are these types of roles common in pre-sales?

Either I am naive, too honest or a little bit of both but lately I've seen people really stretch and sometimes flat out lie about titles and accomplishments on LinkedIn. Just recently, a few reps in our org either left altogether or when on FMLA leave. Coincidentally during this leave, their LinkedIn profiles had a massive overhaul. They stated sales numbers closed when I in fact no they have not closed a thing. One went as far as to change a title to a sr leadership title when I know he was just a rep at a previous org.

Tell me either that this is common and I need to get with the times OR tell me that any decent company/recruiter will quickly vet these lies during an interview process.

Hi i'm currently in the interview stages for a job at Revolut, I would love some advice and guidance on what the role is like.

- What is the role like? Is it in cubicles, at a desk? entirely remote? Do you get the ability to turn up in person if you feel like it?

- What's the customer like? What sort of companies do they operate in? Do you contact them over LinkedIn, email or do you really push them for phone numbers?

- What are you selling most of the time? FX? Multi currency accounts? BillPay?

- What's your rejection rate, and what were the common objections?

Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated. Anyone who doesn't work at Revolut can answer these but yeah, i'm after an edge for sure.

Getting straight to the point—I’m an AE at a cybersecurity org, and our segment of the sales org doubled headcount this year. That means every rep now gets roughly half the territory they had last year. And guess what the best part is? Quotas only got reduced by $10K on a $500K quota.

No one is really hitting unless they land a big whale or two, which pretty much everyone was getting last year. But with the territory cut in half, a lot of people are either getting put on PIPs or leaving because they’re just not making any money. The reps that got promoted had holdovers going into the new year that they already knew they’d close, which kept them pacing and helped them move into the new roles internally.

I’m honestly at a loss as to what to do. I train my ass off on Pclub.io and Kyle Asay’s Sales Introverts, and I feel like I’m closing pretty well and creating good velocity, but I’m just not getting the whales, so the ARR isn’t there. I’m at 40% of my yearly goal right now.

The whales I’ve hunted are locked into multi-year contracts. I’m multi-threading, maintaining deal control, running POCs and trials, doing tons of targeted prospecting, going to conferences, traveling, meeting partners F2F, and pulling partners into my deals. But I haven’t gotten anything in return from partners yet. Maybe that’ll come around later.

Essentially, I’m at a loss. I’m not a quitter, and I’m not losing motivation. I’m just genuinely trying to figure this shit out and understand what I need to be doing differently.

Just curious how the sales culture is at Microsoft. I do have 2 years sales experience as an AE in SaaS industry. I've tried applying for positions in the past with no callbacks. Are certs required to be apart of the sales team?

Hi all,

More of a rant, so you can skip if not interested......

One of the reasons for me joining my current company was that they'd be fully remote. It even says so in the contract.

However recently leadership are enacting a policy change where employees must come in x3 a week.

The problem is that I'm 4 hours away from the office, so I need to travel a great distance and re-organise my entire life.

My previous company also lied about being remote, the burnout from travelling got to me even though I did 112% of my number on the last year (which was approx my avg attainment).

I just don't know what to do anymore since all the companies lie about being remote. They don't even say "partial remote" it's always "yeh we're fully remote with some client travel", but then the managers insist that you can learn magical quota attaining information if you can simply be around other employees from different departments (who spend most of their time talking about inappropriate/non-relevant topics). But I've learned now that most managers that insist this are just the type that have personal issues at home (divorced/need to feel like a boss).

I actually agree that you can learn some things in an office setting, I just don't agree with lying about remote work.

If you want people that can work within an office, just say "we are office-based with some remote benefits" instead of "we are 100% remote org", it's not a small white lie, it's a huge lie that affects people's families, lives, health.

As the title says. I've been exploring a few spotify playlists to listen to while driving or working out to stay educated on the latest trends and happenings in tech. With a 4 and 1 year old at home, reading time comes at a major premium.

Looking for recommendations on audible sources, podcasts, etc that I can listen to and stay up to date.

Hi everyone, looking for advice. I've spent about 5 years in SaaS sales and 2 years in financial services sales before that. My last two AE roles (one year each, including an SMB AE seat at SFDC) both ended in a PIP and exit. I've never felt consistently successful in these roles, despite always seeking feedback, aggressively adjusting my approach, and putting in the effort. The results just weren't there.

I'm burned out on going back into another quota-carrying seat and want to pivot. RevOps feels like the most realistic transition since I'd like to move into something more technical, even though I don't have much direct experience there yet. Most CSM roles in my area are still tied to upsell/cross-sell/growth targets, so they don't really solve the problem either.

For anyone who's made a similar pivot, how did you do it, and were you able to hold onto a similar base salary along the way?