> saying that if you crave the creative portion of the SWE job, sales engineering is not going to cut it for you.
To me, this is what separates customer-facing engineering from product engineering: do you enjoy solving people problems in addition to technical ones?
If so, you'll probably enjoy SE & CS.
If not, then stick to product engineering.
Personally, I get a decent kick out of solving problems. Whether that's because I aligned 3 VPs or wrote a technical solution doesn't change the enjoyment.
That said, I definitely wouldn't enjoy solving problems without any technical component.
To me, this is what separates customer-facing engineering from product engineering: do you enjoy solving people problems in addition to technical ones?
If so, you'll probably enjoy SE & CS.
If not, then stick to product engineering.
Personally, I get a decent kick out of solving problems. Whether that's because I aligned 3 VPs or wrote a technical solution doesn't change the enjoyment.
That said, I definitely wouldn't enjoy solving problems without any technical component.