I'll say that I've met a few sales engineers that really impressed me with their skills at understanding what I need and getting it to me.
I've met a lot of dolts too.
As someone who spent a year programming in job shops (a year too much) I can also say that the quality of the salesperson was a big factor in project success and quality of life.
Some salespeople qualify customers so we get customers that we can really help. Other salespeople "hire" nightmare customers that destroy the profit we made on 5 good customers.
Some salespeople would get contracts with specific requirements and a realistic budget and schedule. A project like this can be a joy to work on and it's equally gratifying to know you make your customer happy too.
Some salespeople write down "2.5 hours" to implement a feature, and it really would be "2.5 hours" if you knew what the feature would do, but it takes 4 hours of talking to the customer to find out what they think they want, then they're wrong and you have to do it again, and you end up spending more like 12.5 hours when it's said and done. That's no fun.
So yes, good salespeople add a lot of value. If the salesperson sells something impossible, the best architects, designers, and programmers can't make the story have a happy ending -- probably the greatest advancement in my programming career was realizing that I can't code myself out of an impossible situation.
I've met a lot of dolts too.
As someone who spent a year programming in job shops (a year too much) I can also say that the quality of the salesperson was a big factor in project success and quality of life.
Some salespeople qualify customers so we get customers that we can really help. Other salespeople "hire" nightmare customers that destroy the profit we made on 5 good customers.
Some salespeople would get contracts with specific requirements and a realistic budget and schedule. A project like this can be a joy to work on and it's equally gratifying to know you make your customer happy too.
Some salespeople write down "2.5 hours" to implement a feature, and it really would be "2.5 hours" if you knew what the feature would do, but it takes 4 hours of talking to the customer to find out what they think they want, then they're wrong and you have to do it again, and you end up spending more like 12.5 hours when it's said and done. That's no fun.
So yes, good salespeople add a lot of value. If the salesperson sells something impossible, the best architects, designers, and programmers can't make the story have a happy ending -- probably the greatest advancement in my programming career was realizing that I can't code myself out of an impossible situation.