Over the past decade, I’ve taken on various roles across the IT spectrum—ranging from Level 1 to Level 3 support, change management, development, tech lead, and architect, to product management, and now sales. Interestingly, I stepped into this sales role unknowingly. It was labeled as a “Solutions Architect” position, and the compensation was attractive. It wasn’t until after I had resigned from my previous job that I learned it was actually a technical sales role.
I’ve always preferred working behind the scenes, and IT gave me that comfort zone. But after resigning, I had no choice but to embrace the new opportunity. Six months into the role, I realized it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. In fact, it opened my eyes to a surprising truth: every role in IT involves some form of selling.
As IT support, we “sell” the idea that we’re addressing the issue—or that the system isn’t at fault.
As developers, we “sell” to product managers why something is or isn’t feasible.
As tech leads, we “sell” to our teams why certain features need to be prioritized.
As architects, we “sell” to stakeholders why a particular solution is optimal at that point in time.
No matter the role, we’re always pitching ideas and trying to earn someone’s buy-in. Selling isn’t always about pushing a product—it’s about influence and alignment.
This current role has taught me how to sell effectively across various technical roles, and I’ll be sharing more insights on that in upcoming posts.