Should I s...

Question

Should I switch from Product Management at Amazon to Account Executive career track?

Can anyone help weigh the pros and cons of being sales, since most probably don’t have experience as a PM.

Former Employee · Accepted Answer

Being stellar in product management doesn’t come with a marker for your profitability to the company like sales does, and being proficient in sales makes you more resistant to reductions, right? I come from enterprise sales where I hit 109% and I was still laid off.

Current Employee · Answer

I can't speak for Product Management, but Amazon is a very big company and has many different divisions. Generally speaking, word on the street is that AWS pays the most when it comes to sales at all of Amazon, which I've heard from many people coming from Amazon Pay and Amazon.com. If you're trying to optimize for pay, more face time with customers/executives, and complex problems with ambiguity, than an AWS Account Executive Role is great role. There also may be a large learning curve as well if this is your first sales gig ever.

Current Employee · Answer

AWS doesnt have a Sales driven culture. Typically Tech resources are valued much more than Sales reps. The quotas are typically tough to achieve. With customer obsessed approach and scary growth numbers, often becomes challenging to achieve. That said, Sales vs Product management is individual choice. High pressure role at Sales however if you can make relationships with unknown people in a matter of minutes and able to bring down the conversations to non technical people (getting tech concepts around), you can think of Sales role.

Current Employee · Answer

ISR in Greenfield here... kind of hard to answer that cause I have a lot of questions like have you had conversations with management on the sales side?  Do you work frequently with customers and helping them get projects off the ground?  Are you hoping to join the business or cloud sales teams?

In terms of pros/cons
Pros:
- great compensation structure (one of the best in the industry)
- collaboration with teams all across the company to accomplish something with customers
- if you're in the Cloud Sales Center (CSC), you work with dozens of partners
- endless opportunity to close business
- very autonomous
- exposure to customer projects that are often huge revenue drivers for them
- customers are usually very nice and appreciative of the support we offer them

Cons:
- KPI's can be tough to hit week-to-week especially if business is slow and sales campaigns aren't reaping any results
- Success of your accounts can be aided or abetted by your OneTeam and how effective you can rally them
- Everyone is going for their promotion so your calendar is inundated with invites
- Certain internal processes can be cumbersome and obtaining attainment towards your goal can be riddled with hiccups

Former Employee · Answer

There is a lot of talk about compensation but dont be fooled you will work for each and every dollar harder than you have ever worked in your life. As a former sales leader its important to understand that "You can make your sales number and still be considered underperforming". You should consider the area of sales Greenfield Commercial sellers lose their accounts once they reach 10K in ARR and every year accounts are reshuffled, you could have 500 accounts you are servicing. Within Enterprise (Not Greenfield enterprise) you have fewer accounts (average 10) but much larger "Go-After" numbers, meaning your hunting for million dollar deals. You should write down why your considering the move and then align why you think sales (aside from other roles) will meet your requirements.

Current Employee · Answer

Realistically being a PM will make no difference to your sales success. Financially it will be more rewarding however it will be more of a grind and uncertain

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Anonymous Q&A

Should I switch from Product Management at Amazon to Account Executive career track? Can anyone help weigh the pros and cons of being sales, since most probably don’t have experience as a PM.