Greenfield Manager, Startups

About the Role:

We're looking for a leader to build, coach, and scale a team of senior Startup Account Executives focused on landing net-new, scaling startups on Vercel. These are high-stakes, technical deal cycles, where founders and engineering leaders are making architectural decisions that will carry them through their next stage of growth as they build and adopt AI-native applications.

You'll set the operating rhythm, drive pipeline creation and execution, and act as a player-coach to help experienced sellers run tight, multi-threaded deal cycles. You'll develop deep expertise in Vercel, use pattern recognition to find the startups where we can deliver the most value, and partner across functions to build a foundation for adoption and expansion. By using automation and AI to maximize your team's impact, you'll turn wins into repeatable playbooks across the startup segment.

If you’re based within a pre-determined commuting distance of one of our offices (SF, NY, London, or Berlin), the role includes in-office anchor days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. If you're located beyond that distance, the role is fully remote. For location-specific details, please connect with our recruiting team.

About Startups at Vercel:

Vercel Startups partners with founders from the first line of code through hypergrowth. Startups move faster than ever, and the infrastructure decisions they make early either unlock scale or become long-term constraints. The Greenfield team hunts new logos at the inflection point: startups that have found scale and now need more from their infrastructure partner across performance, security, AI, and commercial terms.

We're a talent-dense team of former founders, engineers, and go-to-market operators. Many of us have sat on the other side of the table making architectural tradeoffs under real constraints, and we bring that perspective into every conversation. We operate with high trust, high agency, and shared ownership: curious, resilient, and willing to push through hard problems to help startups win.

What You Will Do:

• Hire & Scale: Recruit, onboard, and ramp a high-performing team of senior Startup Account Executives focused on net-new logo acquisition in greenfield territory.
• Coach & Develop: Provide ongoing coaching, 1:1s, call reviews, and deal strategy sessions to sharpen experienced reps into trusted partners for founders, CTOs, and technical leaders.
• Startup GTM Strategy: Define territory and segment approach, ICP targeting, and outbound motions to reach scaling startups at the moments where Vercel can help them build, ship, and scale.
• Player-Coach Leadership: Jump into key deals, join customer calls, and help reps connect technical priorities and architectural decisions to business outcomes across discovery, demos, security, procurement, and negotiation.
• Pipeline & Execution: Drive pipeline generation, disciplined qualification, and consistent deal progression to hit team bookings targets and set customers up for adoption and growth.
• Forecasting & Performance Management: Own forecast accuracy, inspect pipeline health, and manage performance against leading indicators and quota.
• Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partner with Marketing, RevOps, Product, Solutions Engineering, and the Activations and Install Base teams as one team to improve targeting and conversion and help startups adopt AI-native architectures.
• AI, Automation & Repeatable Playbooks: Use AI and automation to maximize team impact, identify patterns across startup needs and usage signals, and turn successful plays into repeatable motions.

About You:

• 5+ years of SaaS sales experience, including 2+ years managing Account Executives.
• A proven track record leading teams to land net-new logos and consistently hit bookings targets, with an understanding of how scaling startups evaluate, adopt, and expand on technical platforms.
• Strong coaching skills across discovery, qualification, mutual close plans, multi-threading, and negotiation.
• Experience building pipeline generation motions (outbound + inbound) and holding reps accountable to activity and quality.
• Comfort leading conversations with founders and technical buyers about architectural decisions and business tradeoffs. You don't need to be an engineer, but you must be credible with engineering stakeholders.
• Curiosity about AI-native development and a willingness to build deep expertise in Vercel and the tools shaping how startups build and ship.
• A growth mindset, resilience, and strong shared ownership. You operate with high trust and high agency while balancing strategy with hands-on execution.

Bonus If You:

• Have sold developer tools, infrastructure, AI/ML products, or other technical platforms to startups.
• Have built or scaled a net-new / greenfield sales motion in a startup-focused segment.
• Have firsthand experience as a founder, early-stage operator, or partner to founders navigating technical and business constraints.
• Have strong cross-functional instincts, especially with Solutions Engineering, Marketing, and RevOps.

The San Francisco, CA base pay range for this role is $280,000 - $330,000. Actual salary will be based on job-related skills, experience, and location. Compensation outside of San Francisco may be adjusted based on employee location. The total compensation package may include benefits, equity-based compensation, and eligibility for a company bonus or variable pay program depending on the role. Your recruiter can share more details during the hiring process.