Difference between SA and TAM

[@mvivanco]

Hello Raj, the way you described a TAMs role I somewhat disagree with. As an AWS TAM, you don't have 100% insight into a customer's workload. You cannot "debug" their code. If they open a case and say an instance is crashing, if they don't provide logs and A LOT of details, a TAM wouldn't be able to do very much. The customer support engineer will have more insight but even they cannot delve into a customer's workload. If a TAM or CSE could do that they would potentially have access to all sorts of personal, proprietary or confidential information. The way I would have described the 2 roles is an SA is a presales role with everything you described. A TAM is a post sales role with their responsibility being the voice of the customer. When a case needs to get escalated, the customer needs assistance to help optimize their costs or anything that involves representing the customer to internal AWS team members, that is where the TAM comes into play. SA's are proactive and TAMs are reactive. An IEM is larger event and not really meant for just putting some code into production unless it has large ramifications to the organization. A TAM cannot test an environment to ensure the workload would perform well. A TAM can help create a runbook to ensure everything that should be analyzed to ensure the event is successful would be successful.

[@cloudwithraj]

Thanks for your values input Mark. I pinned your comment.

[@danielamador9658]

Hi Mark, thanks for your input. I was a bit confused about the same, the way Raj described the TAM is like the support engineer, that leads me to the following question. If a technical problem arises, a TAM is engaged, but what if the problem can't be solve by a TAM? to whom you redirect the concern? is there a support AWS team who actually troubleshoot deeper technical problems? Can you please clarify.
Do TAMs have a backlog of cases to troubleshoot?

[@mvivanco]

@@danielamador9658 let me explain a bit further. If my customer has a question I can answer then I just answer it. TAMs come from all different technical backgrounds. Some have development experience, some neworking, some database, etc. We don't have answers to every question a custom can come up with. Trust me they can come up with some pretty tough questions. We have regular cadence calls with the customer. They might ask us a technical question during these calls. Again, if we can answer them, we do. However, if we cannot, we direct them to open a support case. As a TAM we have limited visibility into customers workloads. We don't have access to see hardly anything. A support engineer has a bit more visibility than we do. Plus they are specialized support engineers. Now lets say the customer opens a case and it seems to be taking too long and the customer needs an answer soon for one reason or another. This can be hours, days, weeks or months after the initial case was opened. They let the TAM know and we can escalate the case or and most likely engage the support engineer, or support team working with the support engineer, and see where the issues are that we haven't come to a solution for the customer.
As a TAM YOU decide how to assist the customer. Customer sentiment is a high priority for you. We don't (generally) have a backlog of cases to troubleshoot. Mostly this is due to visibility we have into the customers workload. The support engineer, who is assigned the case when its opened, is really the one troubleshooting. A TAM has to be technical but the role is as technical as you want it to be. As I mentioned before, lets say I was a NoSQL database expert. If the customer was experiencing issues with query speeds I could possibly assist them with identifying potential hot spots for their keys. BUT since I don't have visibility I'd have to be Chime/Teams/Zoom call with the customer since I cannot see anything of value to troubleshoot. A support engineer could probably see enough information to identify the hotspots.
I hope that clarifies a bit further in what a TAM's role is. If not, please ask more clarifying questions and I'll do my best to answer.

[@bhattacharyyapulak]

@@mvivanco What is the role of Sr. Technical Consultants in AWS? Do they work with TAMs to help the customers?

[@mvivanco]

@@bhattacharyyapulak if you provide me a link to a job I can tell you better. I know they have a couple titles for TAMs. If you would like to work with customers on their Cloud Journey why not go for a TAM role? There are opportunities to work mostly remote in certain areas of the country.

[@santhoshg987]

Raj, you wont believe.. no one could say even about the role description clearly, but you made a very clear point and also compared how a person would work based on SA and TAM. Thanks a lot.

[@cloudwithraj]

Haha yeah that's why I decided to make the video and share from real experience. Glad it was helpful Santhosh 🙏

[@JaBlanche]

As a TAM that works with SAs, this is very on point.

[@cloudwithraj]

Ty JaBlanche

[@nirjharjajodia7169]

As I am TAM, this video helped me a lot in understanding the role of Aws tam

[@Shubham3403]

Hello Raj. I love your videos and they are good to a very good extent. The only feedback is if you could work on getting your accent to neutral. At the moment it sounds like you are trying to speak in a non neutral accent. It makes it hard at times to watch your videos for long. Just a positive feedback. Good work.:)

[@moisesdelgado2068]

This video was incredibly helpful and provided me the clarity I sought. Thanks Raj!

[@cloudwithraj]

You're most welcome!

[@afa8756]

Excellent video with clear explanation! Love the lambda in the background.

[@cloudwithraj]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@naordaniel]

Hi Raj, thank you very much for sharing your knowledge, bought several of your courses and enjoying every minute of it, helps me a lit in my daily job as an SA in a different company. I am currently putting efforts in pursuing a career in AWS and still uncertain if to try for a TAM, SA or Cloud Consultant. Thank you again for everything 🙏🏻

[@nirjharjajodia7169]

Tam act as a broker between customer and support. Tam is the voice of customer in the service provider organization.

[@akshatshrivastava2654]

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[@umeshdombale9039]

Hi Raj,
First of all, thank you for making the knowledge full video, can you please share the current job scenario of SA and TAM. because some people say there is a recession coming soon hence the opening of the SA and TAm is reduced and impacted by the current fiscal year, is it right. please share your thought on it.
Thank you again!!

[@aireddy]

Raj,
You spelled out very clear roles and responsibilities of SA & TAM. Your videos are awesome!

[@cloudwithraj]

Ty Surender for your support 🙏🙏

[@mabszy]

Amazingly clear. Thank you Raj

[@orlandopalomino5877]

Hello Raj.
Is TAM role a technical person ? The same technical knowledge like a SA ?
Or is a person with some technical skills, and not solve issues like a support engineer?
What is the difference with a CSM?
I understand is a post sales, but I am not sure about the duties in a normal day or when there are issues during nights.

[@ashitnayak1912]

Good morning Raj. Nice start to the weekend. Something new to learn. I enrolled to all your courses in Udemy today. Loving it so far..

[@cloudwithraj]

Great 👍 and ty for supporting me by buying my Udemy course Ashit 🙏

[@miguelv2985]

Thanks Raj. I was curious about the Technical Account Manager role. I bought your CloudFormation course and really like the content!

[@cloudwithraj]

Great to hear!

[@cma_ash]

Can I became TAM with skills with no degree?

[@olujideogundeji3120]

Thank you Raj for the clarifications.

[@sameerpatil1583]

Hi Raj. First of all amazing videos and thanks for your time.
I had a question regarding SA: When you get a project/engagement with requirements do you get enough time to prep for the call/poc?

[@cloudwithraj]

hey Sameer, most of the time yes. Generally you will run a discovery session where you will probe into the use case, their existing technology stack/expertise etc. Then go back to drawing board, and prepare and come back. In certain cases, you will get into customer calls with very little notice. But I'd say 90% of the cases you will get enough time to prepare.

[@dariush7272]

Very very interesting and ispiring video. Thanks a lot friend

[@BalbirSingh-nr7sm]

Great video Raj! Most of the outside world has a speculation about the TAM role that its quite an extension to a Cloud Support Engineer's role (of course keeping the customer relationship aside). I understand that the support engineers doesn't work on all the services and are divided into teams and TAMs will have incentive to the customer's architecture which can include multiple services, but do you also agree to the same point? Also, can you comment on the pay scales between the two roles especially in India ?

[@mvivanco]

Read my comment above. Raj's explanation of the TAM isn't really correct.

[@ramyavijayakumar2674]

Raj, Trust me, all these years this is my first comment, I am posting for a youtube video in any category. I am so much overwhelmed by your videos. Such an amazing content. I have 20 years exp, 10 in IT mainframes and 10 years in entrepreneurship. Now looking to get back to corporate thru AWS cloud as I was in to release management .Your videos are my God now, solving all my confusions and doubts. Great job to the community. Could not thank you much.

[@cloudwithraj]

Wow, humbled to read this Ramya. Very glad you are taking the steps to get into AWS which is the future of IT! Thanks again.

[@ebanghabraidsebane2501]

Please can you do challenge during migration from on prem to the cloud and how to resolve

[@cloudwithraj]

Will definitely do in future, ty!

[@naveenvunta8144]

Thanks alot .
I would like to join aws solution architect course ....is there any current program going on

[@akshatshrivastava2654]

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[@arunr2265]

Thanks a lot for the video and fulfilling the request :)

[@cloudwithraj]

Most welcome 😊

[@arunr2265]

@@cloudwithraj is there a dbig difference in terms of pay for SA and TAM. if so who gets more ;). i see both of these roles under SA job family

[@prathameshraut5932]

Very informative video Raj. Can you please mention the designation names other than architect which are used in Amazon's careers page for roles like cloud and Devops engineers. I can only see SDE 1 , SDE 2 etc in their careers so a bit confused regarding which position to apply for if I want to be an AWS Cloud and DevOps engineer in Amazon company.

[@cloudwithraj]

Search "Solutions Architect"

[@prathameshraut5932]

@@cloudwithraj Since I am having only one year of experience in Cloud and DevOps, I think I won't be eligible for Solutions Architect position ( Have 4 years of experience as a Php developer though ) . Request you to mention the designation names of positions in Cloud and DevOps field in Amazon company which would be junior than Solutions Architect.

[@vzgg]

This is excellent. I have a question or need a suggestion from you. When we are giving a demo to the customer and unfortunately it didn't work well. I have faced such scenarios personally and that same thing did work well when I tested it before. These days, architects are considered as super hero's but i know we are still humans sometimes things might not work well as expected. Have you ever faced such scenario ? If yes/no, how best we can handle that scenario ?

[@cloudwithraj]

Hey vzgg, great question! For critical demos I record a backup, so if live demo fails I play the recording of the demo and talk through it. One time, one part of a demo didn't work for me, and I just explained it verbally , and said that I'd show that part in the next follow up call. I agree with you, sometimes these live demos don't work out.

[@vzgg]

@@cloudwithraj great. I will try to follow that from now.

[@carlosroberto366]

@@cloudwithraj "Record a demo" hmmmm I will keep this in mind, still tough though as you would have to quickly find the timestamp of the desired area in the video.

[@keratishvili]

so what is the most highest and at the same time the most hands on position generally speaking TAM?

[@cloudwithraj]

You can be a Principal TAM which is pretty high up

[@bandithe168]

Great dialogue guys

[@larryhoover9040]

How would one prepare for a Sr. TAM phone interview? Any focus areas?

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[@Gnanasekaranp]

Excellent video!

[@cloudwithraj]

Thank you! Cheers!

[@shivacool27]

it sounds like TAMs are like project managers to customer, is my assumption correct?

[@cloudwithraj]

Nahi Shiva bhai. TAMs solve technical issues and don't deal with project delivery timeline, scope etc. like project managers do. Project manager equivalent will be like CSM (Customer Success Manager). Hope this helps.

[@TheKachnaable]

i saw some positions for cloud infrastructure architect. whats the difference from TAM and SA?

[@cloudwithraj]

cloud infra architect will be similar to SA role, but you will focus mostly on certain services based on the job requirement.

[@praveenmail2him]

You are THE best!!

[@cloudwithraj]

Thanks Praveen 👋

[@sameerpatil1583]

Hey Raj, I have a question about SA. I see there are Partner SA roles and just SA. I wanted to understand what is the difference between them?

[@cloudwithraj]

Great question Sameer. Let me try to explain with example, one of our public customer Pinterest has an AWS account team, and general SAs will be part of that account team. Now partner SA will be part of the account team for a partner. Example partners are Splunk, or Capgemini. When other customers need help with Splunk, or work with Capgemini, you will help the partner (Splunk, Capgemini). Hope this helps.

[@sameerpatil1583]

@@cloudwithraj thank you so much for the detailed explanation.

[@Microgen86]

who has higher salary, SA or TAM

[@cloudwithraj]

Salary is similar for the same level. You can switch from TAM to SA or SA to TAM without any salary change (in AWS).

[@Microgen86]

@@cloudwithraj thank you raj. these videos are helpful to prepare for my interview as SA.

[@nandanadeshara5014]

Big Q: min xp for each role?

[@cloudwithraj]

Both have position at different levels - junior, senior, principal. You apply based on your experience.

[@vickyv3343]

హాయ్ మిత్రమా

[@cloudwithraj]

Hello vicky, thanks for watching

[@mliyanage]

what's your tattoo on your forearm?

[@cloudwithraj]

It's Biomech

[@ebanghabraidsebane2501]

Hi sera son vidoe

[@akshatshrivastava2654]

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