Do I have the experience to get a technical account manager/customer success manager/sales engineer role at a SaaS company and make 70k in Chicago? Does this path make sense? General advice for a furloughed waiter with corporate experience.

I can only speak from my experience, but I'd bet you could snag a nice gig working as a technical project/account manager in marketing automation/digital marketing. I primarily work with that group within Salesforce/Salesforce Marketing Cloud (which your Pardot experience plays into) and the industry is booming right now.

I know you said you don't want to do marketing anymore, but it's much more like pure project management in my field and there is no cold-calling/sales aspects whatsoever. Not sure what salaries are specifically in Chicago (my company is remote and everyone is all over), but PM/AM's I'm familiar with are in the 85-100k range.

If you had a desire to pivot into development, salaries go up quite a bit. I make $150k base and then do freelance/contracts for another $100-110k after hours. Demand for Salesforce people right now is absurd and the salaries reflect that. I don't have a college degree at all and was a truck driver/warehouse worker before going the self-taught route.

Sounds to me like you could sell your experience into a lot of different positions, just depends on how you present yourself and your resume.

/r/careerguidance Thread