Tech sales is one of the most accessible paths into the technology industry, and you don’t need a computer science degree or coding skills to get started. Most companies hire entry-level sales reps based on communication ability, coachability, and work ethic rather than specific credentials. First-year on-target earnings typically fall between $70,000 and $100,000, making it a surprisingly lucrative starting point even compared to many roles that require specialized degrees.
Where You’ll Start: SDR and BDR Roles
Nearly everyone breaks into tech sales through one of two entry-level positions: Sales Development Representative (SDR) or Business Development Representative (BDR). Both roles focus on the top of the sales funnel, meaning your job is to identify potential customers and set up meetings for more senior salespeople called Account Executives. The key difference is where your leads come from.
SDRs work inbound leads, people who have already shown interest in the company’s product by downloading a whitepaper, requesting a demo, or filling out a contact form. A typical day involves 40 to 60 calls to warm leads, personalized follow-up emails, and short discovery calls lasting 10 to 15 minutes each. Because these prospects already raised their hand, the rejection rate is moderate and the learning curve is a bit gentler.
BDRs do outbound prospecting, reaching out to people who may never have heard of the company. That means 60 to 80 cold calls per day, 50 to 100 personalized prospecting emails, building target account lists from scratch, and testing different messaging approaches across email, phone, and LinkedIn. The rejection rate is high, but BDRs tend to develop sharper prospecting instincts and gain more autonomy earlier. Both roles lead to the same career progression, so the better fit depends on whether you prefer responding to interest or creating it.
What You’ll Earn
Tech sales compensation is split into two parts: a base salary and variable pay (commission) that you earn by hitting your quota. Added together, these make up your OTE, or on-target earnings, which is what you’ll take home if you meet 100% of your sales targets for the year.
For SDRs and BDRs with zero to one year of experience, base salaries typically range from $48,000 to $85,000. When you factor in the variable component, total OTE lands between $70,000 and $100,000. A common split looks like $50,000 base with $25,000 in variable pay on the lower end, or $65,000 base with $35,000 variable on the higher end. As you move into an Account Executive role after one to two years, compensation jumps significantly, with average tech salesperson earnings ranging from $70,000 to $230,000 depending on experience and deal size.
Do You Need a Degree?
A four-year degree is not required for most tech sales roles, though some larger enterprise companies still list it as a preference on job postings. What matters far more is demonstrating that you can communicate clearly, handle rejection, and learn quickly. Plenty of successful tech salespeople come from backgrounds in hospitality, retail, fitness, teaching, and the military, all fields that build the interpersonal skills sales demands.
If you want structured training before applying, several bootcamps can get you job-ready in a matter of weeks. SV Academy offers a four-week full-time (or eight-week part-time) program. Vendition provides a self-paced bootcamp paired with a 12-week apprenticeship where you work at an actual company. Elevate runs a 10-week online SDR program. Hyrise Academy offers a free online tech sales program with a job guarantee. For veterans specifically, Sales Platoon is a 12-week program designed for transitioning service members. These programs typically cover prospecting techniques, CRM basics, objection handling, and mock sales scenarios, giving you a portfolio of practice work to reference in interviews.
Tools You Should Learn Before Applying
Walking into an interview with basic familiarity of the standard sales tech stack gives you a real edge over other candidates. You don’t need to be an expert, but you should know what each tool does and ideally have clicked around in a free version.
Start with a CRM (customer relationship management platform), which is the central system where sales teams track every interaction with prospects and customers. Salesforce is the industry standard at larger companies, while HubSpot CRM is popular at startups and mid-size firms because it’s more intuitive and offers a free tier you can explore on your own.
Next, get comfortable with prospecting and data tools. LinkedIn Sales Navigator lets you search for prospects using advanced filters and track company signals. ZoomInfo and Apollo.io are massive databases of business contacts that help reps find the right people to reach out to. Apollo.io is especially worth exploring because it combines a contact database with outreach tools in one platform and has a free plan.
Finally, learn about sales engagement platforms like Outreach and Salesloft. These tools let SDRs build automated sequences of emails, calls, and LinkedIn messages so they can manage high-volume outreach without losing track of who they’ve contacted. Even just watching a few tutorial videos on these platforms will help you speak intelligently about how modern sales teams operate.
How to Land the Job Without Experience
Tech companies hire SDRs and BDRs in large cohorts, often quarterly, which means there are consistently open positions. Here’s how to stand out when you don’t have a sales background on your resume.
Reframe your past work around transferable skills. If you waited tables, you managed dozens of simultaneous customer interactions under pressure. If you worked retail, you upsold products and hit revenue targets. If you taught, you simplified complex information for different audiences. Hiring managers care about patterns of performance, resilience, and the ability to build rapport quickly.
Build proof of your interest in the role. Set up a free HubSpot CRM account and log fictional prospect interactions so you can talk about pipeline management in interviews. Write a sample cold email targeting the company you’re applying to, and include it in your application. Record yourself doing a two-minute elevator pitch for the company’s product. These small gestures signal that you understand the work and are willing to put in effort before you’re even hired.
Network on LinkedIn by connecting with SDR managers and current reps at companies you’re targeting. A short, specific message works: mention the company’s product, explain why you’re interested in the role, and ask a genuine question about their team. Many SDR managers hire from their LinkedIn network before they post jobs externally.
What to Expect in the Interview
Tech sales interviews typically run three to four rounds. Early rounds focus on your background, motivation, and coachability. Later rounds get more tactical, and the final stage almost always includes a role-play exercise that separates prepared candidates from everyone else.
In the role-play, you’ll receive a case study describing a fictional prospect’s business challenges and goals. You’ll then run a simulated discovery call with one or more interviewers playing the role of the prospect. The goal is not to pitch the product. It’s to ask smart questions that uncover the prospect’s pain points and, ideally, get them to quantify the cost of their problem in time or money. For example, if a prospect mentions their reps waste time on administrative tasks, a strong follow-up is: “How much selling time do you think is lost to that each day?” Then confirm with other stakeholders in the room that they see the issue the same way.
The biggest mistakes candidates make in role-plays are pitching too early, asking broad questions that ignore the information in the case study, and giving a generic product overview instead of tying features to specific problems the prospect described. Practice by recording yourself doing mock discovery calls. Have a friend play the prospect and throw curveballs at you. The more reps you get, the more natural you’ll sound.
The Career Path After Your First Role
Most SDRs and BDRs spend 12 to 18 months in the role before promoting to Account Executive, where you run the full sales cycle: discovery, product demos, negotiation, and closing deals. AE compensation is significantly higher because you’re directly responsible for revenue.
From AE, the path branches. Some reps move into enterprise sales, handling fewer but much larger deals with six- and seven-figure contract values. Others move into sales management, leading teams of SDRs or AEs. A third path leads into adjacent roles like sales engineering, customer success, partnerships, or revenue operations, all of which leverage the product knowledge and customer instincts you built on the sales floor. The entry-level grind of cold calls and high-volume outreach is temporary, but the skills and industry knowledge you build during that phase open doors across the tech industry for years.