February 2023 Jobs Report

No matter where you look; the news, social media, private communities…it seems like the layoffs are all around us. This is particularly true for the broader tech industry that has seen a massive reduction in staff to try and combat slowing growth, overhiring, and tumultuous markets. But it’s not all doom and gloom in the cybersecurity industry! This month we actually saw a HUGE increase in the number of available roles and the number of organizations hiring. My hunch is that the increase stems from many companies just starting their new fiscal year in February and the concerns of a major cyber related event are growing.

Things are looking up! Cybersecurity pre-sales roles grew by 108% since last month.

A Look at the Numbers

Just like last month, I like to start off by looking at the most popular job title within our industry. I’ve been talking on LinkedIn quite a bit this past month about the difference between the “Sales Engineer” title and the “Solutions Engineer” title. While the broader tech industry seems to have made the shift overnight, cybersecurity is a little slower to join the rebellion. That being said, this month the traditional Sales Engineer title held 36% of the open roles followed closely by Solutions Engineer at 28%. I predict by the second half of this year that those numbers will be inverse.

The Hiring Data

  • This month 101 companies are hiring, out of 250 tracked (40%). This is a very strong ratio given the current market conditions. It is also a 58% increase over the previous month.

  • Out of the 101 companies that are presently hiring, 49 of them (49%) have two or more open roles.

  • As I mentioned earlier, things are really looking up this month! There are a total of 276 open roles this month, a 108% increase vs the previous month. Insane!

  • Sadly only 29 roles, or 11%, of all open roles have a compensation range listed. With the exception of 1 company, all of the roles with compensation listed are because of the new pay transparency laws in NY, CO, and CA. We need to do better folks.

  • Similar to how the world is still divided on WFH vs in office, so too are companies that are hiring. There were 145 open roles listed as remote-first (53%)…just about half. As long as customers continue to keep offices (mostly) empty, I think we will continue to see a strong preference for remote-first to keep expenses in check.

  • Unsurprisingly, the majority of open roles are for individual contributors (IC). The breakdown this month is 93% IC vs 7% Management across all open roles. This is a friendly reminder that climbing the ladder into management isn’t the only way to grow within pre-sales (see this post).

The Geographical Data

  • All of the open roles this month are spread across 35 countries globally. While the US still makes up the largest group, there is a fairly even split between the EMEA region and APAC region for the remainder of the roles.

  • The United States only represents about half (52%) of all open roles at the moment. This is a good signal that growth is happening globally, not just isolated to one country.

  • While the US is hiring for the most open roles at the moment, Germany is in second place, and the UK + Singapore are tied for third place.

  • The most interesting global opportunity this month is in Doha, Qatar.

Report Methodology

When building the report each month there are a few parameters that we follow to ensure the data is as accurate as possible. Below is an outline of those parameters:

  • The total number of organizations tracked this month was 250
  • There is no limitation on funding to be included in the report, we have organizations from seed stage all the way through publicly traded
  • In order for an organization to be included they must have at least one pre-sales job opening listed
  • Any job listed as “remote” is classified by the ability to work anywhere in the country or the ability to live in a large geographic area (e.g. anywhere in the east coast of the US)
  • If a job requires you to live in a specific state within the US, then the job location is classified as the state, even if you can work remotely within the state itself
  • For organizations that have more than one pre-sales role open, we limit the maximum number of jobs included in the report at ten (although we note the surplus below)

While we try not to change these parameters from month to month to ensure data quality, we are always considering new information as it becomes available.

Monthly Overages

This month, five organizations hit the limit of jobs to be included in the report. They include:

  • Rubrik: 24 Open Pre-Sales Roles
  • SentinelOne: 24 Open Pre-Sales Roles
  • Splunk: 17 Open Pre-Sales Roles
  • Hashicorp: 16 Open Pre-Sales Roles
  • Fortinet: 254 Open Pre-Sales Roles

If you are looking to break into your first pre-sales role, or just looking to change things up, we have several resources that can help. Check out the following to get started:

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