SDR Manager
Required skills
- SDR Manager
- business development
- pipeline generation
- AI tooling
- process design
- data-driven
- metrics
- funnel analytics
- pipeline forecasting
- sales productivity
Nice to have
- high-growth startup
- AI
- developer tools
- cloud infrastructure
- technical SaaS
- high-volume inbound
Role summary
Fireworks AI is seeking its first SDR Manager to build and lead a team of Sales Development Representatives focused on qualifying inbound interest and prospecting into target accounts to drive pipeline for Account Executives. This is a hands-on, builder role requiring strong leadership, coaching, and process design skills, with a focus on leveraging AI tooling and data to optimize sales development performance. The ideal candidate will have 2-4 years of direct management experience leading SDR/BDR teams, a proven track record of coaching and exceeding targets, and expertise in AI tooling and process design. Experience in AI, developer tools, or technical SaaS is preferred.
About Us:
Fireworks is the platform for specialized intelligence, enabling companies to build, train, and serve AI models tailored to their own data, workflows, and products. Founded by the team behind PyTorch and backed by AMD, Atreides, Benchmark Capital, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, NVIDIA, Sequoia Capital, and TCV, Fireworks powers production AI with hundreds of state-of-the-art open models across text, image, embedding, audio, and multimodal workloads. Today, Fireworks is a Series D company valued at $17.5 billion, bringing together an ambitious, collaborative team that's building the future of enterprise AI.
THE ROLE
We’re hiring our first SDR Manager to help build Fireworks’ business development function from the ground up. You’ll lead, coach, and grow a team of SDRs who qualify inbound interest from developers and enterprises and prospect into high-value target accounts. Together, you’ll create the pipeline that drives our Account Executive team.
This is a builder role. You’ll own the team’s performance and development while designing the playbooks, systems, and AI-powered workflows behind our top-of-funnel motion. We’re looking for a hands-on, first-line leader who gets results through great coaching. They should be fluent in AI tooling and process design, let data guide their decisions, and bring a “can do” attitude to every problem. They should be excited to define how sales development works at one of the fastest-growing companies in AI.
KEY RESPONSIBILITIES
Hire, onboard, and lead a team of SDRs, scaling the team as Fireworks grows
Coach reps through regular 1:1s, call and email reviews, and hands-on skill development, building a clear path from BDR to AE
Own team performance across activity, conversion rates, meetings booked, pipeline generated, and quota attainment
Build repeatable playbooks for inbound qualification and outbound prospecting, including ICP, personas, messaging, and AE handoff criteria
Partner with Marketing to quickly convert inbound and product-led signals (signups, usage, events) into qualified opportunities
Design and deploy AI workflows and automations for account research, prioritization, personalization, and reporting, freeing reps to focus on high-value conversations
Continuously audit and improve SDR processes, from lead routing and follow-up speed to sequencing and handoffs, so the team operates efficiently at scale
Build dashboards and reporting that give the team and leadership clear, real-time visibility into funnel health
Use data to find bottlenecks, run experiments, and turn insights into action quickly
Work with Sales leadership and RevOps to align on target accounts, territories, lead routing, and pipeline goals
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
2–4 years of direct, first-line management experience leading SDR/BDR teams
A proven track record of exceptional coaching and development, with reps promoted into AE or leadership roles and teams that consistently hit or exceed targets
Strong AI tooling and process skills, with hands-on experience building AI workflows that measurably improved sales productivity (e.g., Clay, AI agents, LLM-based prompts and automations)
A data-driven “can do” mindset: you dig into the numbers, spot what’s broken, and fix it yourself rather than waiting for a solution
Experience managing team performance through metrics, funnel analytics, and pipeline forecasting
Prior experience as an individual contributor in sales development or a closing role
Excellent communication and organizational skills, and comfort engaging technical buyers
PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Experience building a sales development function from scratch at a high-growth startup
Background in AI, developer tools, cloud infrastructure, or other technical SaaS
Experience with both high-volume inbound and targeted outbound motions
Fluency with a modern GTM stack (e.g., Salesforce, Outreach, Apollo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Gong)
Passion for developing early-career sales talent and an active interest in the AI/ML space
Fireworks AI’s goal is to provide competitive cash compensation, equity, and benefits. The compensation offered for this role will be based on multiple factors such as location, the role’s scope and complexity, and the candidate’s experience and expertise, and may vary from the range provided.
Why Fireworks?
Solve Hard Problems: Tackle challenges at the forefront of AI infrastructure, from low-latency inference to scalable model serving.
Build What’s Next: Work with bleeding-edge technology that impacts how businesses and developers harness AI globally.
Ownership & Impact: Join a fast-growing, passionate team where your work directly shapes the future of AI—no bureaucracy, just results.
Learn from the Best: Collaborate with world-class engineers and AI researchers who thrive on curiosity and innovation.
Fireworks AI is an equal-opportunity employer. We celebrate diversity and are committed to creating an inclusive environment for all innovators.
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