Need some advice, interviews for Enterprise AE, now after final stage getting offered a commercial AE role
Hey Folks, need some outside perspective on this, it's gonna be a long one;
I'm mid 30s, been in sales my whole career
Have been interviewing with a public listed company, role is located in DACH, salary band was around 200k OTE with 800k quota full cycle sales, focus on new business.
The interview process began as the recruiter told me they habe two openings (one commercial AE, one enterprise AE) and I clearly stated that the enterprise AE is what I want to go for.
Fast forward I passed a cultural fit, a case study (45 min Presentation how I would sell their product into one named account they chose). The hiring manager was completely stunned and there was literally no negative feedback or improvement on the presentation.
Then interview with the SVP, that's where things went a bit weird. This SVP was rather doing a police interrogation than a real conversation, and gave me a bit of a weird vibe.
Get called from the Hiring manager, he tells me he would love to work with me but HR and the SVP have concerns as I don't have enough enterprise AE experience on my CV.
Now I have (verbally) an offer on the table for a commercial AE position. I've been laid of end of last year but I'm coming from a Senior Sales title (let's call it Key account Manager). So the things I'm thinking here:
-it seems like a step down or at least a lateral move for me.
-they could have told me I don't fit at an early stage.
-bait and switch to get me cheaper, commercial role will be best case 180 OTE
I feel once I lock in a commercial role a path upwards might be significantly harder given the conversation I had with the SVP.
I have other processes running (strat AE) where the hiring manager was also stunned. However I don't know if I can get this to offer stage before the other offer runs out once it's there.
So with that all in mind, what do you think? Am I completely off on my thinking on feeling a bit lowballed here? Maybe commercial AE and enterprise AE are the same career wise and I just have a different perception? Also what other things should I consider?
Besides that I do have financial runway and I know it's an incredible tough market so even landing am offer is great. Just not sure if it will backfire in the long run.
Any advice or perspective would be helpful