The highest paying tech sales jobs, ranked

Published: Wed, 11/24/21

November 24, 2021

Happy Thanksgiving. Even if you’re feeling worn down from chasing Q4 goals, there’s still a lot to be thankful for, like the fact that by now, everyone’s finally figured out how to schedule a Zoom call. In this pre turkey-and-stuffing edition of The Quota, we’ll pull back the curtain on how much the top sellers in tech are making, find out how people feel about selling to friends and family, and help a former bartender who’s having a hard time dealing with the pressure. Let’s get into it.

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

The percentage of time that inside sales reps spend actively selling.

Source: CSO Insights

SALES ROUNDUP

Here’s what’s happening in the sales world this week:

According to a recent Forbes article, sales is experiencing a talent crisis as more and more companies are unable to hire (and retain) enough salespeople to keep up with demand. The reasons for the crisis are numerous, but have to do with the booming job market in sales related fields, and the propensity of younger workers to switch jobs more frequently. On the flip (and more important) side, this means more opportunities for salespeople.
In an incredible twist of fate, a 26-year-old car salesman who was ranked 19,366th in the world, came in third (!) in the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas last week, taking home a prize of $3,361,247.50. The winner, Jack Oliver, said of the victory: “Of course it’s going to change my life in some ways – it’s a lot of money – but as much as it is about the money it’s kind of not. I play poker for the love of the game and will continue to do so and hopefully play a lot more poker in the years to come.” You can read more about the (probably former) salesman here.
A Melbourne, Australia furniture salesman-entrepreneur is about to hit the big screen, as a movie about his rags-to-riches tale is set to be released. The pitchman, Sicilian-born Franco Cozzo, spent decades on the small screen, promoting his furniture business, becoming something of a local sensation. Now, as the 85-year-old nears retirement, he’s hustling for his final sale: getting rid of the last of his stock before developers take over his real estate. You can watch the short segment here.

MEME OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram -- Sales Humor

FEATURE

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian -- Source: "Thomas Kurian" by Oracle PR is licensed with CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Here’s how much the top companies in tech are paying their salespeople.

The venture capitalist Marc Andreessen famously once said, “Software is eating the world,” describing how technology is permeating every industry and nearly every facet of our lives. As it turns out, this hasn’t been a bad thing for the sales community, with hundreds of thousands of high-paying sales jobs having been created in the software sector, leading to some of the most competitive wages in the profession.

We wanted to pull back the curtain to find out just how much the top companies in tech were paying their salespeople, so we reached out to RepVue, a platform where you can discover 1000s of peer-rated and top-paying sales orgs, to get some hard figures.

A few things to note: The following data only covers tech organizations, that is: IT, software, and internet companies. Of the top five paying tech companies, four are Enterprise roles, while one is a SLED (selling to State, Local, and Education government agencies) role. The data only covers individual contributors, self-identified as Sales/Account Executives, and does not include producing sales managers. Lastly, the top earner figures are an average of what the respondents report top performers can earn in the role, and are not a definitive figure.

The numbers. Here are the top five paying companies in descending order:

5. Cloudera (software). This is the only SLED role that managed to crack the top five, with a base of $151,000, and OTE (On-target earnings) of $302,000. The average deal size is $285,000. Quota attainment (no pun intended) is at 67%, which means over two-thirds of the sales team is hitting quota, and (according to reps on the Cloudera enterprise team) the top earner can earn $872,000 (or more).

4. BigPanda (software). Coming in at number four, an AE at BigPanda has a base of $153,571, and OTE of $307,142. Quota attainment is a bit low, at 52.1%, and average deal size is $327,500. And, topping out the list in this category, the top earner at BigPanda can make a whopping $907,142.

3. CyberGrants (IT). AEs at CyberGrants can expect a base of $133,750, and OTE of $308,750. The average deal size is $85,000, and quota attainment is at 60%. Coming in with the lowest income on the list, a top earner at CyberGrants can still make a very respectable $555,000, putting this role smack dab in the middle at number three.

2. Auth0 / Okta (software). As the second-highest-paying tech sales role, an AE at Auth0 has the highest base pay on this list, coming in at $156,666. Total OTE is $310,000, and quota attainment is the highest on the list at 60.8%. The top earner at Auth0 can make $818,333, and the average deal size is $125,416.

1. Google Cloud (IT). To no one’s surprise, tech giant Google made the top of the list, with AEs earning a base pay of $148,750, and OTE of $313,333. Average deal size is an astounding $466,875, and quota attainment is 54.6%. The top earner at Google Cloud can make $797,500.

A few more things to note. If you look closely, you’ll notice that every organization on this list has OTEs over $300,000.

You might also notice the correlation between high earnings and high average deal size -- only one organization has an average deal size under $100k. These companies pay their sales reps well because they’re pulling in extremely large (and complicated) deals.

Lastly, every one of these organizations has a high RepVue score, meaning they’re great places to work, at least according to their employees. So if you’re thinking about making a career move and want to max out your income, these five companies would be perfect targets. But, as you can expect, the competition to get in the door will be pretty stiff.

SALES FAILS

Each week, we bring you the most cringe-worthy sales moments from across the web. To submit your sales fail story for consideration, click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

“Years ago, when I first got into sales, I was working for a heavy equipment manufacturer. A guy who I had only spoken to on the phone came in and brought in some paperwork I’d sent him to fill out. He was friendly enough and we were bantering a little bit about the neighborhood our building was in (it was in a bad area), and he was making jokes about it, so when I looked at his paperwork and saw the handwriting, I made a joke about how bad it was, comparing it to a doctor’s scribbles. All of a sudden, he stiffened up, looked me right in the eye and responded, 'I have Parkinson’s.' I’ve never wanted to crawl in a hole as badly in my life. I couldn’t apologize enough. He said it was ok, but for the rest of his time there, it was all business.”

Anonymous, 46 Dallas, TX

GRAPH OF THE WEEK

Source: Instagram Poll -- November 2021

ASK THE QUOTA

Want to submit a question and be featured in our advice column? Click here. (Don't worry, you'll remain completely anonymous).

Dear Quota Team,

This is my second year working in sales. I’m doing inside sales for an electronics manufacturer, selling to small and mid-sized companies. Before this, I was a bartender for six years, half of them when I was in college. I got into sales after a friend of mine showed me how much money he was making, and I’m making great money now too, without having to work nights and weekends like I was in my “industry” days.

But I’m having a really hard time with the mental aspect of the job. I’m not sure if this is happening to anyone else, but I get so stressed out about quotas and putting out different fires all the time that I’m having literal panic attacks. This has happened to me at least twice in the last few months. I’m basically resorting to self-medicating (thc) to keep myself functioning well enough to do my job.

Don’t get me wrong, making this much money has been amazing. For the first time in my life, me and my fiancé are able to take weekend trips and hang out with other professional friends of ours without having to worry about schedules or money, but I just feel so much pressure all the time, and am always worried that I’m not gonna hit my goals and get fired and end up worse off than I was before. Do you have any tips to help me deal with the constant pressure? Is this just gonna be how it is for the rest of my career? I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick around if this is my future.

Worried in New York

Dear Worried,

Congratulations on making it through your first year in sales. Lots of new sales reps don’t even make it that far, so you’ve definitely shown a level of commitment and grit that not everyone does, even though you’re having a hard time right now.

To answer your question: being stressed out in sales is perfectly normal, but having panic attacks is not, and there’s no way you should accept it as part of your career. No paycheck is worth putting your health in jeopardy, so it’s important to get things under control as soon as possible, before your problem gets worse.

Our first bit of advice is to talk to your doctor and to potentially enlist the help of a therapist. They are professionals and can help you work through some of these issues -- which are by no means uncommon.

Our second bit of advice is to take a step back and think about why you’re letting yourself get so stressed out. Oftentimes, our lizard-brains -- survival instincts we’ve retained from our cave-dwelling ancestors -- convince us that we’re in serious danger when we get stressed, despite the fact that there’s no real risk of imminent harm.

So take a moment and think it through. If you don’t hit your sales goal, what’s the worst thing that could happen? Chances are, you won’t get fired, not after one bad month anyway. But even if you did, it’s likely that you could land another sales job fairly easily. And if not, you could always take a temporary job bartending again, right? The point we’re trying to make is that the worst case scenario (ending up broke and homeless?) is very, very unlikely to happen, despite what your instincts are telling you.

Another thing that might be helpful to keep in mind is that you’re at your job by choice. Nobody is forcing you to stay there, and if you wanted, you could walk out the door tomorrow and never go back. When you realize that you’re in control of your destiny, it can take some of the pressure off and make things easier.

We hope this helps, and we wish you the best in your career, whether it’s in sales or not. Good luck!

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Today's email was written by Ken K., Steve R., and Emily H.

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