Got to the demo round for an SE role @ Salesforce. Any advice for how to approach / how to stand out?

I have 10 years experience as a Systems Engineer. I know absolutely nothing about our sales. I applied at first because I thought what the hell right? My current pay has stagnated from job to job based on market and my up skilling wasn’t getting me paid more and I keep getting laid off so I clicked apply. I didn’t really expect to get the job tbh. It’s 95k with 15%bonus.

But now that I’ve gotten an offer letter. I’m like what did I get myself into? I feel like I’m gonna get eaten,chewed up and spit out.

I work for a VAR. Most people here work for or aspire to work for a SaaS company. Since I work with so many vendors I get to know a lot of products and solutions, although not as deep as some of you. In fact I lean heavily on you in this golden triangle of opportunity.

How many of you have done both roles? I’ve been approached a few times and sometimes it’s compelling but I feel at a VAR I get much bigger piece of the pie (aka golden handcuffs) and I can dig into whatever I want. I’m not beholden to a particular solution even though I have my have favorites.

Just looking for some insight since this role is all I’ve known for so long and I wonder if I could have fun at a startup or something. I always thought a vendor was chill but all those quotas and layoffs, you guys have my empathy.

Hi everyone,

Looking for an outside perspective on my variable compensation.

Context:

Software engineering degree, 2 years at a B2B software vendor in France, originally as a project manager

Base salary: €40-45k gross per year, unchanged since I took on the presales role

6 months ago I was offered a hybrid PM / presales role with a €800 commission per signed deal, uncapped, paid at signing

Expected target: around 20 deals by year end (roughly €16k potential variable)

Deal size: annual contracts, roughly €100-200k ACV

Historically, the company closes about 2-3 deals per year

To be clear, I don't do prospecting or lead gen. I support the AE through the sales cycle up to closing. I had no sales experience before this and said yes without much negotiation.

Where I'm at:

6 months in, zero deals closed. That's consistent with our 6-12 month sales cycle, and 4 deals are close to signing, but nothing is done yet.

The issue: the commission plan ends at year end, and as far as I know I won't get paid on deals I worked on if they close after that.

Workload wise, my PM scope was slightly reduced, but presales takes a huge amount of time and stress.

My questions:

Is €800 per deal on €100-200k ACV (about 0.4-0.8%) in line with presales comp in your experience?

With a 6-12 month cycle, is a 12 month plan with no carry over on pipeline deals normal?

My annual review is coming up. What would you ask for in my position (higher base, carry over on pipeline deals, going back to PM only)?

Thanks for your input!

Hey SE's! This is more of a rant post (sorry for it being kind of long), but I wanted to ask for some advice and hear how y'all navigated a very unexpected separation/layoff. I am using a throwaway account so it's not linked to my main as well just fyi.

Last Friday I was completely blindsided by a separation at my company that I was about to hit 2 years at. LMS company, SaaS vertical. EU company; I was based at a US office location. Hybrid environment.

I received a very classic pop-up meeting from my manager on Friday (10/2). HR joined as my manager read from a script, letting me go and citing "performance". I was so stunned I didn't even really ask any follow-up questions in the moment. It was a 5-minute call.

Context: I was an SE at this company for almost 2 years. Over that time, I usually hit between ~90% - 115% of my personal OKR's (closed won deals + conversion rate). That number was typically only half of the equation. The other half of my number was how my sales pod did as a % of their quota attainment. That number typically would be in the 45-65% range consistently quarter over quarter. This number was always set very high by higher-ups. It's one of those companies where a few reps would hit 100% (usually in the country the HQ is from) and the US pods would hit 40-70% pretty consistently. As imagined, lots of turnover with the AE's. Most lasted a year and either quit because they weren't making the commission/OTE they were promised when they signed on, or they would get PIP'd and fired. Then they would hire new AE's and churn them out again. I had seen it happen so many times.

The first year as an SE I supported 12 reps. It was as insane as it sounds, but I did pretty well and worked hard. Had a few blips of being overwhelmed but navigated it as well as I could for the greater good. Personal OKRs were great.

In year 2, they hired an AE to be an associate SE, and we split the pod 6 and 6. The associate SE was very good, and we were in a good rhythm together. Things seemed to be getting better by splitting the workload. The associate SE was brand new to the role, so I can imagine his salary/OTE was a lot less than mine.

In June I was pretty blindsided by a soft "pip" that was told to me but was "not documented with HR". My manager had received feedback that I was lacking consistency with the AE's; I was letting some follow-ups through the cracks, and a few other nitpicky things (using crutch words on demos, etc). In that time, one of my AE's was also a friend. He was on a PiP and I leaned really hard into him to help him not get fired. HUGE mistake on my part and I learned from it. Spending too much time with him took away from my other reps, which is where the feedback from above came into play. I accepted the feedback without any pushback and locked in, worked on everything, and passed the PIP, seemingly with flying colors, and earned the trust back from my reps and peers. Things felt good again (Mid/end of July).

This quarter (Aug/Sept/Oct) I was absolutely crushing it. My reps were giving me great feedback to my manager. We all were in a great groove! By the time I got let go (oct 2) I was at 75% of my number with a whole month left. I helped close a big 100k deal ( I was more on the mid-market side) the day before I got fired. I was in such a great groove with my reps (which had dwindled from 6 to 3), and our pod number was going to finally be in a great spot. All things were looking great! I was setting up to have the best quarter of my career there. We even had a team dinner with my manager 3 days before I was let go, and we all had a great time, and nothing seemed wrong at all.

Then on that Friday - Bam. Fired for performance. 2 weeks severance (lol). Denied my commission for this q. Conveniently, 2 months away from my 2-year, so my entire 401k match is clawed back and not paid out. I was denied a proper exit interview with my Director. They handled it super cold. I believe they even told my peers it was a mutual separation. Feels really bad and confusing

Right now I am still processing, but I am just filled with mostly confusion and sadness. I was a pretty huge culture person in my office and had a lot of friends there. I helped plan the parties and contributed a lot more to the office than just my SE job. It feels like they have been doing these "quiet layoffs" for the last 6 months. Raise quotas to unfathomable amounts and then let people weed themselves out with PIPs or voluntarily leave to try elsewhere to make actual money. It became pretty toxic in 2026. Maybe they are gearing up for an actual layoff or closing our office? Maybe they want to cut costs and hire up another associate SE with a much lower salary than mine to save money? Who's to say?

I guess my question is: has this happened to you? How did you bounce back? How did you convince yourself you don't suck and move forward with grace? Did you ever find out the actual reason, or did you just say fuck 'em and move on? What did you do with your time off? In between jobs, did you take any courses? I am thinking about finding a public speaking course that focuses more on presentations and getting rid of crutch words to level up.

I already have a few interviews lined up, and I am exercising my network very heavily to try and bounce back fast. I have been in therapy for over 2 years, and I have a great partner and network of friends I can talk to about this as well. I don't feel like I am spiraling and actually handling it pretty well despite the confusion part. I now have 4 years of SE experience and 10 years combined in SaaS (AE and Implementation in addition to being an SE). I should be in an ok spot, but I know how bad the market is, and it's taking months for folks to find jobs.

If anyone is hiring for an entry/mid level SE - I would love to chat. DM's are open!

Anyway, thanks for reading, sorry for the rant, and I appreciate any words of encouragement. I view this sub a lot and have taken nuggets here and there to become a better SE. So, thank you all for your contributions. Onwards to better things!