Sales Development Representative Lead

ABOUT TRAVERSAL Traversal https://www.traversal.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com is the AI Site Reliability Engineer (AI SRE) for the enterprise. Production complexity was already outpacing what engineering teams could manage manually, and AI-generated code is accelerating that gap. Traversal is built for that challenge, autonomously understanding and reasoning across even the largest, most complex production environments to diagnose, fix, and prevent incidents. Our mission is to free engineers from endless firefighting and give them more time to focus on creative, high-impact work. Today, Traversal operates in mission-critical environments at some of the world’s largest enterprises. Our roots remain deeply embedded in AI research, and we’ve brought together researchers from institutions including MIT, Harvard, Berkeley, Columbia, and Cornell with world-class technical staff and operators from companies like Google, Meta, Datadog, ServiceNow, and Citadel Securities to take on one of the hardest problems for AI to solve. Traversal is backed by Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Hanabi, NFDG, and American Express Ventures. THE ROLE 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. REQUIREMENTS - 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.   WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN US Traversal is a place to take on hard, meaningful problems with real ownership from day one. You’ll work alongside people who challenge you to grow, learn constantly, and help define a new category of infrastructure software. We think long term, move quickly, and hold a high bar without taking ourselves too seriously. We offer competitive salary and equity packages, health insurance, fertility benefits, a great tech setup stipend and flexible time off. Plus in-office snacks, team happy hours and outings, an annual company offsite, and plenty of built in time to collaborate across teams.