Sales Engineer Salary: Your 2026 Guide
A sales engineer sells technical goods and services. Explore various relevant factors, including experience, education, and location, all of which can impact your personal earning potential, to guide your path forward and help maximize your wages.
![[Featured Image] A person wearing a hard hat and working for a sales engineer salary talks to a potential client on the phone while on a sales call in a factory setting.](https://d3njjcbhbojbot.cloudfront.net/api/utilities/v1/imageproxy/https://images.ctfassets.net/wp1lcwdav1p1/63tMCB49qmmDRuo4vMjalq/b85f9747e0f7b3e989eec159c00467cf/GettyImages-1366379534.jpg?w=1500&h=680&q=60&fit=fill&f=faces&fm=jpg&fl=progressive&auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=1&w=1000)
Key takeaways
Sales engineers have high earning potential in the United States. Discover some important facts about sales engineers and their salaries:
The annual median total salary for a sales engineer is $156,000, according to Glassdoor [1].
Essential skills for sales engineers include customer relationship management, sales engineering, and engineering design.
You can prepare for a career in sales engineering by specializing in a specific type of engineering, such as chemical, computer hardware, or mechanical engineering.
Explore the average sales engineer salary and how factors like location, education, and experience affect how much you can earn. Afterward, if you’re ready to build your software application development and engineering knowledge, consider enrolling in the IBM DevOps and Software Engineering Professional Certificate. Beginner-friendly, this program offers guidance on the software development life cycle, application deployment, test-driven development, and more.
What is a sales engineer?
A sales engineer is a sales professional who sells goods and services that require technical understanding. They typically help demonstrate, troubleshoot, and answer potential customers' questions. These products and services could come from a variety of industries, including the commercial, industrial, and technical sectors.
Through their knowledge and experience in engineering, technology, and science, sales engineers can explain to customers the technical aspects of their products. They also have a range of workplace skills, including excellent communication, customer service, and creativity.
Average sales engineer salary
The median annual salary for a sales engineer is $121,520, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) [2]. While this suggests strong earning potential, gaining a comprehensive view of the possible salary you can expect by comparing the data from multiple popular job listing websites, including Glassdoor, Indeed, and Zippia, can be helpful.
The table below lists the salaries posted on these websites:
*Glassdoor salary information represents the median total pay. This figure includes base salary and additional pay, which may represent profit-sharing, commissions, bonuses, or other compensation.
Factors that impact sales engineer salary
Salary information varies quite dramatically, and the actual salary you receive depends on several factors, including your location, industry, personal skills, education, and experience, as well as the commission you earn. Let’s take a look at these factors in more detail.
What is the top salary for a sales engineer?
According to Glassdoor, the top-end salary for a sales engineer is $200,581 [1]. BLS reports that the top 10 percent of sales engineers earned more than $202,670 [5]. You can increase your compensation as a sales engineer by earning commissions and bonuses.
Read more: 9 High-Paying Sales Jobs and 5 Growth Industries
Education
Sales engineers generally have a bachelor’s degree, typically in engineering. Still, it is possible to secure a position if you have the technical training or relevant experience. Engineering is a popular degree program for sales engineers, and you'll find that many of them specialize in a specific type of engineering, such as chemical, computer hardware, or mechanical engineering. You also may choose to take business courses to round out your studies.
According to Zippia, sales engineers with a bachelor's degree earn an average salary of $101,864, and those with a master's degree earn an average of $105,849 [6].
Certifications and certificates
Gaining certifications can positively affect your salary. Continual professional development and keeping up with new technologies are essential in this role, and studying for a certification is a great way to demonstrate that you are remaining up-to-date with current technical knowledge.
Sales engineer certification options include the following:
Certified Professional Sales Consultant (CPSC)
Engineer in Training Certification (EIT)
Professional Certified Marketer (PCM)
Experience
To become a sales engineer, you need sales experience and technical know-how. You can build up experience by starting in an entry-level sales role, such as a sales representative, before moving on to more senior roles like sales manager.
Your salary will likely also evolve and increase as you gain experience. The table below outlines different sales engineer levels and the associated annual median total wage according to Glassdoor [1]:
| Years of experience | Median total annual salary |
|---|---|
| 0–1 | $117,000 |
| 1–3 | $126,000 |
| 4–6 | $143,000 |
| 7–9 | $160,000 |
| 10–14 | $180,000 |
All salary information represents the median total pay from Glassdoor as of February 2026. These figures include base salary and additional pay, which may represent profit-sharing, commissions, bonuses, or other compensation.
Skills
You can build valuable skills while studying for a degree and gaining professional experience. These skills may help you secure more senior positions and higher salaries. Below, you’ll find some popular skills and the salary you can negotiate when you master them, as reported by Payscale [7]:
Customer relationship management (CRM): $79,747
Engineering design: $79,586
Sales engineering: $83,897
Technical sales: $84,729
Presentations: $88,252
Commission
Like in many sales roles, working as a sales engineer means you typically can earn a commission on your sales in addition to a base salary. The commission you earn typically depends on the number of sales you make, your performance reviews, and the commission structure. The commission structure varies from company to company.
Glassdoor reports that additional pay for a sales engineer ranges from $45,000 to $83,000 [1]. This may include a combination of commission, bonuses, and profit sharing.
Location
Salaries can vary according to geographical location, so you should research salaries based on different cities. According to the BLS, the highest-paying metropolitan areas for sales engineer roles are [8]:
San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA: $173,640
Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN: $170,400
Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, AZ: $169,560
Knoxville, TN: $163,270
New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ: $156,170
Industry
Like location, the industry you choose can also factor into your income. Some industries are more lucrative than others. According to BLS data, the following is a list of industries and the median annual salary you can expect [5]:
Software publishers: $137,650
Wholesale trade agents and brokers: $134,990
Computer systems design and related services: $131,810
Merchant wholesalers, durable goods: $109,150
Manufacturing: $101,940
Company
Different companies pay different rates and have different values for their commission structures. The differences in salary generally lie in the company’s business model and what they deem important. According to Zippia, the five highest-paying companies that employ sales engineers are the following [4]:
Meta: $149,271
Google: $145,644
Apple: $141,380
Mixpanel: $140,093
NVIDIA: $138,850
Related job titles
The skills, education, and experience you need to work as a sales engineer also apply to many similar jobs. Examples include the following:
Senior sales engineer: $227,000
Regional sales manager: $143,000
Technical sales engineer: $146,000
Lead sales engineer: $202,000
Director of sales: $224,000
Industrial engineer: $107,000
Computer hardware engineer: $101,000
Marketing sales consultant: $142,000
*All salary information represents the median total pay from Glassdoor as of February 2026. These figures include base salary and additional pay, which may represent profit-sharing, commissions, bonuses, or other compensation.
Are sales engineers in demand? Job outlook
According to the BLS, the job outlook for a sales engineer is good. The anticipated growth rate is 5 percent between 2024 and 2034, which is faster than average and equates to around 5,000 projected job openings per year on average [2]. While it can be an exciting job with targets to achieve and commissions that change depending on performance, you may find the rewards (higher salary and work opportunities) are worth the effort.
Explore our free resources for sales professionals
Join Career Chaton LinkedIn to get weekly updates on popular skills, tools, and certifications. Discover more sales career tips with our other free digital resources:
Watch on YouTube: Highest Paying Sales Jobs – Where Big Earnings Meet Big Deals!
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Article sources
Glassdoor. “Sales Engineers Salaries, https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/sales-engineers-salary-SRCH_KO0,14.htm.” Accessed February 17, 2026.
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