Module Four

            Vice President of Sales Engineering for Teletech was the position that my older brother held.  Teletech is a premiere Business Process Out-Sourcing company or B.P.O.  He designed computer solutions for businesses.  He would build entire dedicated systems which consisted of eleven-hundred servers that cost approximately twenty-nine million dollars to build.  They had thirty-two computer rooms with dedicated data bases to operate the system.  This system took his team two years to build.  He was also involved in designing and building the computer system for a call center.  They had two centralized locations, Denver, Colorado and Phoenix Arizona, which serviced the entire world.  Each centralized location had twenty-five hundred servers and three dedicated data base servers.  The call center had to have software for order entry.  The company out-sourced the building of the software to India, saving the company a large amount of money.  He designed the program using Windows as the base for the system and then used Fox Pro 1996, Oracle and Basic 2000 to help design the software around Windows.  He also had to build a C.T.I, or computer trust integration, into the system to connect the computers and the telephones.  This project took his team four years to finish.  He stated that computer technology doubles every eighteen months and they had to replace the computers to keep up with the changes in the speed and efficiency of the computers.   The cost to maintain these data base servers increased as well because the rooms that the servers were kept in had to be maintained at seventy-one degrees to keep the computers cool.  The computers run at such a high rate of speed that they need to be cooled down.

            He also designed Power Point presentations, system demos and mock-up demos to market their products and services.  He traveled all over the world showing presentations and demos to potential customers.  He also installed the systems he has helped design for various businesses and training their customers in the use of their products.  He has traveled to places such as Australia, Ireland, India, England and numerous states in the United States. 

            The other project that he was involved in was designing a call center for the 2010 Census.  They had seventy-four global centers, four mega data centers and seven hundred and fifty servers to support the 9.9 million calls that would need to be made.  There were eight thousand agents operating the telephones.  All of the hardware had to be converted from a premise base to a centralized base in order for the project to work properly.  

            The United States Department of Labor defines the duties of a sales engineer as a person who determines how products and services can be designed or modified to suit customer’s needs.  They also advise customers on how to best use the products designed for them.  They specialize in technologically and scientifically advanced products.  The sales engineer will help solve their customer’s problems after their product is installed.  They will also serve as a liaison between the customer and their company.  They may also be involved in market research.  The position of a sales engineer is very stressful as their job security depends on their success in sales and customer service.  Their positions often require them to work more than forty hours per week.  Their territories are normally large and require them to travel extensively.  They must also have excellent communication skills and must be strong in math.  A sales engineer is usually employed by companies that design and build technical products or work for independent sales firms.  The median wage that a sales engineer earns is $95,580.00 per year.

            The sales engineer position is a very fast-paced and demanding job as well as being highly competitive.  One of the downfalls of this job is the long hours that are required to complete a project.  My brother consistently worked more than the required forty hours per week in order to complete a project on time.  He is often gone on business trips for extended periods of time taking him away from his wife and children.     

            This is a highly competitive position that requires a person to keep up-to-date on the latest modifications to the computer systems and how they will affect their customer’s current programs.  There are many demands placed upon these individuals which require not only them to make daily sacrifices but their families as well.  The fast-paced world of high efficiency computers requires that they be updated every eighteen months.  Businesses need upgrade their computers every eighteen months in order to keep up with the demands of the world.