Startups Lead

Responsibilities

Own the Startup Ecosystem

• Build and own a territory of high-growth, venture-backed startups.
• Develop relationships across the YC ecosystem and broader startup community.
• Identify promising companies early and build relationships before infrastructure decisions are made.
• Become a trusted resource for founders and engineering leaders evaluating CI, developer infrastructure, and engineering scale.

Build Pipeline

• Generate pipeline through targeted outbound, referrals, events, founder networks, VC relationships, and creative prospecting.
• Use funding, hiring, GitHub activity, engineering growth, product adoption, and other signals to identify startups at the right moment.
• Build relationships with accelerators, investors, founders, and other ecosystem influencers.
• Develop creative approaches to engage high-potential companies.

Win and Grow Customers

• Work with founders, CTOs, engineering leaders, and developers to understand infrastructure and development workflows.
• Help startups evaluate and adopt Blacksmith.
• Run fast, lightweight sales cycles.
• Identify companies with potential to become significant customers as they scale.
• Build relationships that can grow from an initial team into company-wide adoption.

Sell a Technical Product

• Develop expertise in CI/CD, GitHub Actions, cloud infrastructure, developer workflows, and cloud economics.
• Partner with Solutions Engineers on technical discovery and evaluations.
• Understand how startups build and ship software and identify opportunities to improve developer velocity.
• Translate improvements in speed, reliability, and infrastructure cost into clear value propositions.

Build the Startup GTM Motion

• Develop a point of view on how Blacksmith should win the startup market.
• Shape YC, accelerator, and venture ecosystem programs.
• Identify patterns across fast-growing customers and turn them into repeatable acquisition plays.
• Bring founder and developer feedback to product and engineering.
• Experiment, measure results, and scale effective motions.

Requirements

• 2+ years of quota-carrying sales or partnerships experience, ideally in developer tools, infrastructure, cloud services, or technical SaaS.
• Understanding of startup operations and how founders and engineering leaders make buying decisions.
• Hunter mindset with the ability to open doors, build relationships, and win new logos.
• Strong instincts for identifying promising companies and engaging early.
• Ability to manage a high volume of opportunities without sacrificing follow-through or customer experience.
• Comfort selling directly to founders, CTOs, and engineers.
• Technical curiosity and willingness to understand how the product works.
• Ability to move quickly without relying on lengthy enterprise sales processes.
• Creative approach to pipeline generation beyond sequences and cold outbound.
• Interest in building a sales motion rather than inheriting one.

Nice-to-Haves

• Experience at an early-stage startup.
• Existing network across YC, venture-backed startups, founders, or investors.
• Experience selling to Seed through Series B companies.
• Experience building startup, emerging, or SMB sales motions.
• Understanding of GitHub Actions, CI/CD, developer infrastructure, or cloud economics.
• Experience with product-led or usage-based businesses.
• Active involvement in the startup community.
• Experience building a territory, community, or ecosystem from scratch.

Compensation & Benefits

• Competitive base salary and uncapped commission.
• Meaningful equity.
• Medical, dental, and vision insurance.
• 401(k) match.
• Unlimited PTO.
• Early-exercise stock options.
• 12 weeks of fully paid parental leave in the U.S.
• Annual company offsite.