Solutions Engineer - Something to consider?

Figured you might benefit from hearing my career path. I graduated from college and went to work at a very small company as a software developer. loved the work and the team but the pay was weak so I looked around for other options. got offered a Solutions Engineer position at a huge, established, database tech company that was advertised as an "innovation builder" that would use software development and their Cloud products to boost interest for customers. I thought this was a sweet gig at a much larger established company. Unfortunately, Solutions Engineer ended up being almost entirely pre-sales. Product demos, customer meetings, tech conferences to generate interest in cloud product. I was really turned off by the fact that i was selling more than i was coding. but stayed because it paid much better than my previous position. Once I decided enough was enough, I looked around for software development positions. Since it had been several years since I developed code on a daily basis, I found that it was very difficult to find the right match. I wanted to work at similarly prestigious companies, but my software developer skills weren't enough. I ended up compromising and finding a cloud developer position with another cloud company that was post-sales implementation / consulting. so no more selling cloud products, but instead implementing, architecting, and advising customers. When I look back, I do miss the software development lifestyle, but I think making these job hops to prestigious companies was better for my career.

/r/cscareerquestions Thread