The last one didn’t give me any tremendous amount of new gray hair, the support engineering gig if you forget. This time I am covering for a really nice person whose wife had a baby last week and his position is as an account manager. Despite the non-technical elements involved (you still need enough to understand what the engineerings and customers are discussing), it is a job requiring enormous case management skills. The soft skills part is a no brainer too.
I received the approval nod from the higher ups because I’ve worked very hard to be someone these customers enjoy speaking to; I can be relied upon with the other account managers (I keep them in the loop with my interactions); and as Sr. Specialist, I constantly evangelize to the other people the importance of case handling.
Could this lead to anything? I don’t know. I may end up hating this or loving it. Either way, I want to see how these people operate and take back what I learned to my co-workers. Should I really dig the spot, then I may have an advantage if the group expands. My immediate plans remain making the move up to some form of support engineering.