The Convergence of Presales and Post-Sales: A New Career Path with Shamil Turner
Jack Cochran interviews Shamil Turner, global technical solutions leader at Figma, about the convergence of pre-sales and post-sales roles. Turner shares insights from his transition from being Figma's first SE to leading post-sales technical solutions, discussing how storytelling, curiosity, and discovery are critical skills that transfer across both functions. The conversation highlights how consumption-based pricing models are driving companies to blur the lines between pre-sales and post-sales responsibilities.
Summary
The episode features Shamil Turner, a member of Pre-Sales Collective's advisory board and global technical solutions leader at Figma, discussing how the boundaries between pre-sales and post-sales are increasingly converging. Turner spent over four years as Figma's first solutions engineer, building the SE organization from the ground up before transitioning into a post-sales technical role — a move he describes as 'coming full circle' to his roots as a systems engineer.
Turner explains that the biggest surprise in moving to post-sales was the energy dynamics: executives who were present during the sales process often disengage post-sale, forcing teams to work bottom-up with end users who didn't make the purchasing decision. Unlike pre-sales, where the focus is on vision-setting and validation, post-sales requires anchoring on who is available, rebuilding context for individuals unfamiliar with the tool, and customizing approaches team-by-team across potentially hundreds of groups within a single organization.
The conversation distinguishes between forward deployed engineers (FDEs) and technical account managers (TAMs). Turner argues FDEs require deep practitioner-level domain expertise and development skills — people who have dealt with real-world constraints in a specific domain. TAMs can blend product knowledge with lighter domain experience. Both roles, however, require strong storytelling and discovery skills, which Turner identifies as the core transferable competencies from pre-sales.
Curiosity emerges as a critical but often undervalued trait. Turner notes that hiring managers can test for genuine curiosity by observing the quality of questions candidates ask at the end of interviews, rather than accepting self-reported claims of being 'technically curious.' In post-sales, curiosity manifests as the ability to pick up on subtle cues in conversations and 'double click' on small statements customers make.
The discussion touches on the broader industry shift from subscription-based to consumption-based pricing, which Turner argues makes post-sales 'the new revenue driver.' As utilization becomes a key revenue metric, the old model of closing a deal and leaving customers to self-deploy is no longer viable. Turner frames post-sales engagement as essentially scaling the evaluation process — running discovery, understanding current state, advising on best practices, and validating outcomes — the same recipe as pre-sales but applied at much greater scale.
Turner closes with his mantra of 'higher, longer, wider' — meaning account executives should engage at the executive level, think about where a customer can be in one to two years rather than just the immediate win, and expand conversations beyond core champions to adjacent teams who can also derive value from the product.
Key Insights
- Turner argues that post-sales executives frequently disengage after purchase, forcing post-sales teams to work bottom-up with end users who had no role in the buying decision and must be re-educated on why the tool was purchased in the first place.
- Turner distinguishes forward deployed engineers from TAMs by arguing FDEs must have practitioner-level domain experience and real-world deployment constraints — not just product knowledge — citing cursor (IDE-first) and Ramp (ERP domain) as examples of domain-specific requirements.
- Turner identifies storytelling and discovery as the two core overlapping skills between pre-sales and post-sales, arguing that software engineers with strong technical depth often fail in customer-facing roles precisely because they cannot tell a story or lead a room.
- Turner claims that curiosity can be exposed in interviews not by what candidates say about themselves, but by whether they ask substantive questions at the end — noting that candidates who say 'you were so expressive, I understand everything' reveal a lack of genuine curiosity.
- Turner frames post-sales engagement as 'ramping up the evaluation 100 times,' using the same recipe as pre-sales — discovery, best practices, advisory sessions, and outcome validation — rather than viewing it as a fundamentally different discipline.
- Turner argues that consumption-based pricing is making post-sales 'the new revenue driver,' because touching the entire business — not just the buying committee — is what drives utilization, which in turn generates revenue under consumption models.
- Turner recounts that in his early career starting in 2012, the industry mindset was 'big win and then it's up to the customer to figure it out,' contrasting this with today's expectation that pre-sales and post-sales teams share accountability for long-term customer success.
- Turner introduces the mantra 'higher, longer, wider' — meaning account executives should engage at the executive level, think about where a customer will be in one to two years, and expand beyond core champions to adjacent teams who can still derive partial value from the product.
Topics
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