Who this book is for
We realize that there will be a wide array of people picking up this book, and we would like to provide more specific details for each type of reader to help prepare you as you move through the chapters. This information will help you approach the material properly and view it through the lens that will help make you successful.
Students
If you are a Cybersecurity or Information Systems student within academia today and considering becoming an SE, I want to encourage you to really dig deep into the key concepts here so that you become familiar with what makes a great SE. You can then begin to take concrete actions to move yourself in that direction and build your résumé so that potential employers will see you as an attractive candidate.
Being an SE used to be fairly unattainable for a young professional coming out of college, but more and more organizations are seeing the value of an associate SE role, or basically, growing their own SEs internally. These programs are great for both an organization and an amazing opportunity for those so fortunate to be chosen to be part of them. Possibly the best example of this program today is at Palo Alto Networks, which has an SE academy. This is the most mature and comprehensive SE academy in the industry today. For those geeky enough, you can equate being selected to attend the very elite Palo SE Academy to getting selected to attend Starfleet Academy. However, there are other leading organizations in the market that hire young associate SEs and then develop their talents internally until they are ready for promotion to become a full SE.
IT professional
If you are an IT professional, whether an administrator, network engineer, analyst, or any other position in the field, this book will help you not only understand the environment and culture you will work within but also the best practices for you to be successful.
There are significant differences between being someone with administrator privileges in a single environment and being an SE. And given that, there are some very serious considerations to ponder before making the jump from the enterprise space to an SE role. For example, are you OK with giving up your administrator rights? Or is that an important value point for work to be meaningful to you? In addition, SEs work with many customers and will rarely be deeply immersed into all the aspects of one company’s environment. If this is something you would sorely miss, you will need to do a serious gut check before leaving your network engineering role.
On the other hand: Have you been working with a tool in your current role for quite some time? Are you certified in it? Do you feel the tool provides you and your team a lot of value? Do you think you could use your experience to help others in similar situations? Well, if you’ve answered yes, then reach out to that specific vendor and explore with them if the SE world may just be for you! There are certain skills you would need to learn along the way, but that is what this book is for.
Sales engineers
If you are currently working as an SE today and fairly new to the role, you can use this book to help focus on the key best practices that we lay out throughout the text. This book will truly help you move your career to the next level as an SE, and both you and your organization will benefit from your increased effectiveness as a well-rounded and more centered engineer.
Every organization will have its own culture and certainly before implementing new processes (from this book or any other source), make sure to collaborate with your SE teammates to get their thoughts. For example, after reading about our recommendations on how to conduct a proof of concept (PoC), you may decide to make changes to the way you run your own, and that would be great. Just remember, that even positive changes to a business process need to be collaborated properly for them to be well received. Even more importantly, ensure that you discuss with your manager any new process changes that you want to integrate into your current workflow. This will ensure that you are aligned with not only the business but also the strategic objectives of your SE organization.
Senior or principal sales engineers
If you are already a senior SE, have been in the field for many years, and have accumulated a great deal of experience, this book will serve as a professional development tool. You will most likely skip through the first section of this book, but I am sure you will gain insights and tips in the remaining sections. Even if reading through the content, you discover that the book is affirming best practices that you do today, there is still value in that. However, you will discover tips and best practices that you can incorporate into your day-to-day operation, making you even better than you are today. There is an ancient biblical saying: Iron sharpens iron. If you are well into your career as a senior SE, make sure that you align yourself with others like you. And, of course, the fact that you are reading this book is a sign that you really take your professional development seriously.
SE manager
For managers looking for ways to add to your existing culture, you will find Parts 2 and 3 the most impactful. For example, you may have recently inherited a team of good SEs, and yet some sloppy habits exist. Or perhaps there are no standard operating procedures for how to run a PoC or other operational functions. You can then begin to prioritize what changes come first, and methodically integrate the best practices we lay out here to your team. We recommend a methodical approach for good reason. It is easier for people to accept meaningful change a little at a time. If you give your SEs time to digest a couple of key changes each quarter, they will more readily adopt them successfully, and ultimately that makes for a positive culture change.
For managers who read this and want to use it as a professional development tool for their team, we recommend approaching this with a very focused perspective. In other words, asking your SEs to read this book before a given date will provide little value and in fact, could actually just cause resentment. SEs are typically very busy people and don’t take well to you heaping some nebulous assignment to their existing workload.
However, if you take one chapter at a time and follow up with a team call in which you ask one of your senior SEs to share a key point they got from the material, you will find the open conversation will begin to occur on the team call. Professional development for SEs can be tricky but does not need to be elusive. Stay focused on a specific area, have meaningful discussions, consider the feedback given to you… THEN implement any new best practices based on both the feedback and the concepts in this book.
You can really make a difference in not just your business operation, but also in the lives of the SEs that report to you. The SE manager role is one of the most challenging roles out there, and so much is riding on your performance. Unlike the SE, who is responsible for his specific business goals, you are responsible for both your region’s business goals and arguably as important…you are responsible for building up and helping your SEs be the best SEs they can be. Part of your success will be a legacy of professionals who will grow to become captains of the industry as their careers progress. You will know you were successful…when you see that they are successful!
