Exa
Head of Sales Development
1mo ago
210000 –300000 USD / yearUSAHead
Lead and build the Sales Development Representative (SDR) organization to drive pipeline generation and support company revenue growth.
Responsibilities
- The Head of Sales Development will build, lead, and continuously evolve Exa's SDR organization to support rapid growth. You'll own pipeline generation strategy across inbound and outbound motions, develop high-impact teams and leaders, and ensure operational excellence across the SDR function.
- This role partners deeply with Sales, Marketing, and RevOps to align on pipeline quality, coverage, and execution, scaling a best-in-class sales development engine. This is hands-on, high-ownership work. You'll build from zero and scale fast.
Requirements
- 7+ years of sales / SDR leadership experience in a high-growth technology company.
- Located in the San Francisco Bay Area and willing to commute to the office a minimum of 2x per week.
- Deep understanding of modern SDR processes and tools such as Outreach, Gong, LinkedIn Sales Nav, 6sense, and Zoominfo.
- Experience executing an outbound multichannel strategy.
- Consistent track record of exceeding quota while both leading a team and as an individual contributor.
- Strong analytical experience with managing pipeline goals and forecasting.
- This is an in-person opportunity in the San Francisco Bay Area or New York City Metro. We're big believers in in-person culture. In addition to premium healthcare benefits (medical, dental, vision), we also offer fertility benefits and a monthly wellness stipend to all of our employees
Other
- Exa is building a search engine for the AI era. Our Search API powers Agents, Fortune 500s, and AI labs as we transform an industry that hasn't been disrupted since the 90s. We're a largely SF-based team of ~100 from Harvard, MIT, Meta, Google Research, ex-founders, and dropouts alike.
- We recently raised an $85M Series B from Benchmark, and we're rapidly building the most intelligent search engine in history. We're high agency, low-ego, and united by the feeling that this is one of the last problems worth getting right.
- Exa's global Sales Development strategy and operating model, including outbound and inbound motions, capacity planning, segmentation, and coverage to support company revenue goals.
- Building, scaling, and leading a high-performing SDR organization. Setting the bar for talent, leadership expectations, and long-term succession planning.
- Establishing a data-driven growth engine. Using performance analytics and continuous optimization to improve pipeline quality, conversion rates, and efficiency.
- Creating and sustaining a culture of excellence, accountability, and operational rigor. Aligning performance management, coaching frameworks, and standards across the team.
- Designing compensation, incentive, and recognition programs that drive consistent over-performance while aligning SDR behavior to revenue and pipeline priorities.
- Developing future revenue leaders. Implementing career paths, readiness frameworks, and promotion criteria.
- SDR performance reporting and forecasting. Defining KPIs, SLAs, and dashboards that give executive leadership clear visibility and inform strategic decisions.
- Cross-functional partnership with Marketing, RevOps, and Sales Leadership to align demand generation, territory strategy, tooling, and process improvements.
- Hands-on by default. You've personally managed MDM, configured SSO, run cables, and set up conference rooms. You don't outsource the details.
- Security-minded. You think about access controls, compliance, and risk without being asked. SOC2 and IAM aren't acronyms you have to look up.
- Operationally obsessed. You notice when something is broken before anyone else does and you fix it without making it a big deal.
- A great onboarding partner. New hires have a smooth first day because of you. You've built onboarding and offboarding processes that actually work at scale.
- Comfortable with ambiguity and building from zero. High grit, high ownership.
- Excited to advocate for Exa. You care deeply about building the infrastructure that lets us build perfect search.