I’ve become accustomed to weird looks when I tell people, “I’m a Delivery Engineer.” It’s not the easiest job to explain, and I’ve heard all the jokes about trains, pizza, and wonderful-sounding trains that deliver pizza.

There are a few quick answers I’ve worked up to help explain what a Delivery Engineer does:

• “I’m like the fireman on the ol’ steam engines,” which is surprisingly accurate, but assumes people know about that very particular type of fireman.
• “I make sure emails don’t go to spam,” though that sounds like I’m pushing spam, which is the exact opposite of what I do.
• “I make the emails go,” which is good enough for most folks.

Explaining the job of the Delivery Engineer is quite a feat, especially if you’re just minding your own business at work one day when your boss walks over and says, “Hey, you! Make me an email-blaster-thingamabob.” You might not be able to explain it, but you just became a Delivery Engineer.

If you ever do find yourself in such a position, or if you’re just curious about the many factors involved in delivering emails (both the bulk and transactional varieties), we’ve got you covered. Check out our improved Email Delivery for IT Professionals guide, which includes all the necessary steps for setting up your own email-delivery servers. We’ve updated with new tips and best practices, including better bounce processing, the role of engagement in spam filtering, and new authentication technologies (DMARC, anyone?) There’s a lot more to discover, but you’ll have to read the book to find out.

By the way, if your boss actually did tell you to make an “email-blaster-thingamabob,” We have a guide for him too. Print it out, and leave it on his desk. If, after reading that guide, he still insists on calling it a “blaster,” unplug his computer. That’s the #1 duty of a Delivery Engineer.

Not quite up to building a delivery infrastructure? We understand—there are a lot of steps to get email from point A to point B successfully. That’s why we’ve already done it for you. Sending bulk email is easy with a free MailChimp account. And for transactional emails, try a free Mandrill account.

Also See:

• Email Genome Project – What Delivery Engineers do in our free time
• Mandrill is a new transactional email service from MailChimp. And they have a blog.
• Three Billion Emails