I went from performance work / data science tools at Facebook to PM at MemSQL. A big part of my job is enterprise sales engineering (SE) work, pairing with account executives (AEs) around the country as we fill out our SE team.
The funny thing is that I'm doing much of the same things here as I was doing at Facebook: understanding the team's core problem, understanding their systems, designing benchmarks, explaining possible solutions, walking through operations scenarios, etc.
There is more PowerPoint time, as we are from a separate company and need to establish our credentials first, but the bulk is deeply technical and the standards are high. I couldn't bullshit these people even if I wanted to.
Younger people who were more technical in the early 00's are not moving up into management and decision making positions in companies (buyers). It's requiring a more technically savvy sales force in return.
The funny thing is that I'm doing much of the same things here as I was doing at Facebook: understanding the team's core problem, understanding their systems, designing benchmarks, explaining possible solutions, walking through operations scenarios, etc.
There is more PowerPoint time, as we are from a separate company and need to establish our credentials first, but the bulk is deeply technical and the standards are high. I couldn't bullshit these people even if I wanted to.