March 18, 2025
Mizzou Engineers learn to bridge the gap between technical development teams and customers.
At Mizzou Engineering, education is rooted in continuous growth. Our students dig deep into their curiosities, and sometimes that means exploring new and unexpected paths.
“Today’s engineers have to be able to present and sell their ideas effectively,” Adjunct Professor Steven Hogg said. “To do that, they need to understand the concepts and principles of sales engineering.”
Currently a solutions account executive with Bastian Solutions, Hogg brings 18 years of practical experience as a sales engineer to the classroom. In his class, ISE 4001: Introduction to Sales Engineering, students learn how to bridge the gap between technical development and customers, ensuring that products and services meet the customer’s specifications and provide value.
“As sales engineers, we advocate for the customer,” Hogg said. “We design a solution based on their input and then stay involved throughout project execution to make sure their vision and objectives are met.”
Solutions can vary, from a robotic palletizing system that reduces dependency on manual labor to the automation of warehouse picking that enables faster order fulfillment.
“Behind every same-day delivery you’ve received, a sales engineer played a key role in making it happen,” he said.
It’s a profession with promise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, sales engineering jobs will outpace average job gains, growing 6% in the next 10 years. The median average wage for sales engineers was nearly $117,000 in 2023.
Sales engineers often apply solutions from one industry to another, leveraging their experience across different technologies and sectors. This cross-pollination of ideas helps provide innovative solutions for a wide variety of clients.
“A sales engineer might take insights from robotics and apply them to logistics or draw from logistics to innovate in health care,” Hogg said. “The potential to make an impact, time and time again, across various applications and industries, is huge.”
Setting students up for success
Erin Hyde, a senior studying industrial engineering, agrees that sales engineering training can open doors for ambitious students.
“We need engineers who are communicators and innovators, prepared to tackle global challenges and drive future advancements,” she said.
In his class, Hogg assigns students to teams for final projects. This semester, Hyde’s group will be designing an automated warehouse picking system.
“We each have individual roles that build up our skill set: how to run a meeting, how to articulate your ideas, how to gain feedback and then make your process better,” she said. “It’s a really cool glimpse into what it’s like to be a sales engineer.”
Hyde is vice president of the Mizzou Society of Sales Engineers (MSSE), which organizes workshops, information sessions and panels and brings speakers to campus. It also helps future sales engineers find a community, as they can study any major at the College.
“We’re a rare bunch,” Eliana Eubanks, MSSE President and biomedical engineering senior, said. “We’re unicorns.”
A self-described evangelist for sales engineering, Eubanks encourages other students to consider sales engineering as a career path.
“Those people skills and those abilities transfer to so many fields,” she said. “Once you’ve learned them, you can apply them anywhere — medical device sales, HVAC sales, anything.”
Eubanks is confident about her prospects in any industry and says other students should feel confident in finding a successful career as well.
“A sales engineer is an engineer at the end of the day,” Eubanks said. “And an engineer can make it anywhere.”
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