VAR and Vendor Careers

[vito_corleone]

Ah.  I see what you mean, but let me add that there isn't much of a concept of "pre-sales" where I work.  At least not in the official sense.  I give presentations, I design, I often go onsite to help with setup and testing, and I provide support afterwards as needed.  So if a customer demanded we have someone available/onsite during a cutover, that's going to be me as well.  We're also required to do technical documentation (whitepapers, TOIs, etc.).  Not that I'm trying to brag - just trying to convey the scope of our work.  About it being fulfilling... that's something I always wonder about because I feel like I'd rather be an Ops guy so I can "own" something rather than just building a network and handing it over.. but after reading what you stated earlier and from what a friend has told me, maybe I'm better off where I am.

Okay, I see where you're coming from. It'd take an act of God to get a Cisco SE onsite during an after-hours cutover, in my area at least. Dedicated pre-sales guys at a VAR aren't likely to be onsite for cuts either. I think the key difference either way though, is that you're not (or shouldn't be) held as accountable as the VAR delivery guy. He's the one who's responsible for the project going smoothly, which means verifying/going deeper on the pre-sales design, staging, configuring, etc, and also coming in at/under hours (as much as humanly possible).

As for being an Ops/enterprise guy, I know what you mean. I missed "owning" a network for a while, but I got over it and I don't think I would go back any time soon. My experiences in enterprise were much less challenging (as in I didn't feel like I had to learn as much/stay on my toes) and also less fulfilling.

[icecream-guy]

i think it'd be cool to be have intimate knowledge about some particular device or product line, go out into the field tippety-tap the configuration and have a wizzbang working appliance.  with of course a direct line to the developers for in depth support.  only thing that I wouldn't like is the travel.  don't like airplanes...