My experience as an AE exposed consistent gaps across product, leadership, and sales execution.
The product often felt more like repackaged positioning than meaningful innovation, which made late-stage sales difficult—especially as customer churn is a real challenge
Leadership lacked clear direction, with constant pressure on forecasting and optics over realistic deal progression.
FINAO - failure is not an option - with daily forecast meetings - pressuring reps in front of the entire sales team.
Sketchy business practices - Pre - booking deals that were very early stage to negotiate pre-buys with large distribution and then pressuring sales teams to "find deals" to send over. All to make an end of quarter or end of year number.
Several cases of members of the sales team being let go "due to performance" - even though they had a large pipeline with deals in closing/procurement stages. This typically happened just before the end of quarter to boost their numbers and avoid paying out earned commissions.
Customer Success turnover was also incredibly high, affecting continuity and customer outcomes. You can't sell to angry customers.
Product innovation lags behind positioning - MAX, SCDR and V2 all smoke and mirrors.
