Stage 1 · Lesson 6 of 7
Adjacent roles that lead in
Several roles sit next to these three and build the same skills. set up a product for new customers. Professional services engineers deliver paid customer projects.
Technical account managers look after the technical health of large accounts. Support engineers diagnose and fix customer problems, often reading logs and code. These roles usually hire more juniors than teams, and they teach , integrations and calm under pressure with real customers.
Many forward deployed and started in one of them. In services-heavy markets, such as software houses in Pakistan and India, client-facing delivery roles build the same muscles.
Common trapdismissing them as lesser jobs, when they are often the shortest honest path to the role you want.
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Resources for this stage
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- GuideFreeThe Pragmatic Engineer
Gergely Orosz
Free issues cover how forward deployed and customer-facing engineering roles work at real companies
Also worth your time
The free part explains the role's origins and how it differs from solutions engineering