[Hiring] Sales Development Representative Lead @Traversal

Role Description

As an SDR Lead, you will build and lead a high-performing outbound sales development team. You'll own the strategy, execution, and coaching that turns targeted account lists into qualified pipeline for our Account Executive team — while staying hands-on with the reps you manage.

You'll set the outbound playbook, manage a small pod of SDRs day to day, and work cross-functionally with Sales, Marketing, and RevOps to keep pipeline generation predictable and scalable.

Responsibilities

• Hire, onboard, coach, and manage a team of SDRs, setting clear activity, quality, and pipeline-generation targets.
• Own the outbound playbook — messaging, sequencing, and prospecting motions — across email, phone, and social, refining it based on what converts.
• Partner with Marketing to align on inbound lead routing, qualification criteria (e.g., MQL/SQL definitions), and campaign follow-up.
• Work with RevOps to define and track SDR KPIs (activity volume, meetings booked, meeting-to-opportunity conversion, pipeline sourced) and keep Salesforce data clean and consistent.
• Segment and prioritize target account lists in partnership with Sales leadership, using tools like Clay and Apollo for enrichment and list-building.
• Own our investor-network outreach motion — coordinating warm-intro requests through Sequoia, KP, and other VC/angel partners, holding SDRs accountable to daily outreach targets against our top-tier accounts, and reporting outreach effectiveness back to those partners.
• Build and maintain a systematic, tiered outreach plan across our top target accounts, and stand up signal/trigger-based prospecting (job changes, outages, new exec hires) in partnership with RevOps and GTM tooling like Clay.
• Own the post-event follow-up motion (conferences, dinners, exec briefings) with a consistent SOP so event engagement reliably converts into booked meetings.
• Run weekly 1:1s, pipeline reviews, and call coaching sessions; use Gong to review calls and sharpen team messaging.
• Serve as an escalation point for complex or high-value accounts, and stay hands-on in prospecting when needed.
• Report on team performance and pipeline contribution to sales leadership, flagging risks and opportunities early.
• Champion AI-driven ways of working across the team — using tools like Claude to speed up account research, personalize outbound messaging at scale, and automate routine reporting, so reps spend more time selling and less time on manual busywork.

Qualifications

• 1–3+ years of experience managing or leading an SDR/BDR team, ideally at a B2B SaaS company selling into enterprise or technical buyers.
• A track record of building or scaling outbound pipeline generation — you can point to specific playbooks or programs you've built.
• Strong coaching instincts: you can listen to a call or read a sequence and immediately identify what to fix.
• Comfort with a modern GTM stack (Salesforce, Apollo, Clay, Gong, Outreach/Salesloft or similar); ability to get hands-on with tooling rather than just directing others.
• Data-driven approach to managing a team — comfortable setting targets, tracking conversion rates, and adjusting tactics based on results.
• Excellent written and verbal communication; ability to represent the voice of the customer back to Marketing and Product.
• Experience selling into technical audiences (engineering, DevOps, SRE) or incident-management/observability space is a strong plus.

Nice to Have

• Experience at an early-stage or high-growth startup where the process is still being built, not just inherited.
• Familiarity with account-based prospecting into large enterprise accounts (Fortune 500 / strategic logos).
• Experience partnering directly with RevOps on comp design, territory planning, or lead scoring.

Compensation

• We offer competitive compensation, startup equity, health insurance, and additional benefits.
• The U.S. base salary range for this full-time role is $200,000 - $275,000 OTE, plus equity and benefits.
• Our salary ranges are based on location, level, and role. Individual compensation is determined by experience, skills, and job-related knowledge.

Benefits

• Competitive salary and equity packages.
• Health insurance.
• Fertility benefits.
• Great tech setup stipend.
• Flexible time off.
• In-office snacks, team happy hours and outings.
• Annual company offsite.
• Plenty of built-in time to collaborate across teams.