Overview
You'll drive strategic go-to-market projects as Backblaze rebuilds its sales motion. This is less "Salesforce admin" and more "figure out how we should structure territories, plan capacity, and optimize the sales model." You report to Kassie Morgan (Senior Director), who owns the full GTM transformation. Expect high-visibility projects with exec-level stakeholders.
Role Snapshot
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Role Type | Strategic Revenue Operations - Planning, analysis, and GTM strategy execution |
| Sales Motion | Supporting transformation from current state to optimized multi-motion GTM |
| Deal Complexity | Analyzing and optimizing across transactional to enterprise deals |
| Sales Cycle | N/A - you're designing the system, not selling |
| Deal Size | Supporting deals from $5K to $200K+ ACV |
| Quota (est.) | No quota - measured on strategic project delivery, model accuracy, and GTM impact |
Company Context
Stage: Public company (IPO'd in 2021)
Size: 362 employees
Growth: In major GTM transformation - rethinking positioning, sales motions, and scaling strategy
Market Position: Challenger in cloud storage against AWS S3, Google Cloud, Azure. Differentiate on transparent pricing and no lock-in, but fighting uphill against hyperscaler ecosystems.
GTM Reality
Current State:
- Undergoing major GTM transformation (positioning, sales motions, scaling strategy all in flux)
- Mix of PLG self-serve and traditional enterprise sales
- Leadership needs strategic thinking on how to structure teams, allocate resources, and scale efficiently
- Likely questions: Should we have separate teams for SMB vs. Enterprise? How do we structure territories? What's our capacity plan for next year? How do we optimize comp plans?
Your Role in It:
- You're the analytical horsepower behind GTM decisions
- Building models that answer "what if" questions for leadership
- Designing the operating model for how sales should work post-transformation
- Tracking whether strategic initiatives are working and adjusting course
Competitive Landscape
Main Competitors: AWS S3, Google Cloud Storage, Microsoft Azure Blob, Wasabi
How They Differentiate: Predictable pricing (no surprise egress fees), S3-compatible, anti-lock-in positioning
Market Challenge: Competing against hyperscalers with massive ecosystems and existing customer relationships
Your Role: Analyze competitive win/loss data, identify where they win vs. lose, inform GTM strategy based on market reality
What You'll Actually Do
Time Breakdown
Strategic Analysis (40%) | Planning & Modeling (30%) | Exec Presentations (15%) | Cross-functional Projects (15%)
Key Activities
- Sales capacity planning: Building models for how many reps needed to hit revenue targets. Analyzing productivity by segment, tenure, territory. Forecasting hiring needs and ramp impact. Presenting hiring plans to exec team.
- Territory and segmentation design: Figuring out how to divide accounts across reps. Should they segment by company size? Industry? Geography? PLG vs. sales-led? Analyzing trade-offs and making recommendations.
- Comp plan design and analysis: Modeling different commission structures. Analyzing payout vs. attainment. Ensuring plans drive the right behavior without breaking the bank. Handling comp plan questions from sales leadership.
- GTM strategy projects: Could be anything—should we enter a new market segment? Should we change our sales methodology? Should we restructure the team? You build the analysis, present options, help leadership decide.
- Pipeline and funnel analysis: Deep dives into conversion rates, velocity, deal size by segment. Identifying where the model breaks. Finding levers to pull for improvement. Building predictive models for forecasting.
- Business reviews and reporting: Building exec-level dashboards and presentations. Preparing board meeting materials. Explaining what happened and why. Recommending what to do next.
- Ad hoc strategic requests: "Can you model what happens if we double the SDR team?" "Can you analyze win rates by industry?" "Can you figure out why pipeline slipped?" High-priority fire drills from leadership.
The Honest Reality
What's Hard
- Analysis paralysis: Leadership wants answers fast, but good analysis takes time. You'll balance speed vs. rigor constantly.
- Imperfect data: During a transformation, data is messy. You'll make recommendations with incomplete information and clearly state your assumptions.
- Politics: Strategic decisions affect people's territories, comp, and team structure. Not everyone will love your recommendations. You need thick skin.
- Moving targets: GTM strategy will shift. A model you spent two weeks building might become irrelevant when priorities change.
- High visibility, high stakes: Execs will use your analysis to make million-dollar decisions. If your model is wrong, it's expensive. Pressure is real.
- Influence without authority: You'll recommend changes but not implement them. You need to convince sales leadership, not mandate.
What Success Looks Like
- Your models accurately predict business outcomes (capacity plans hit targets, forecasts are within 5-10%)
- Leadership uses your analysis to make GTM decisions (you're in the room when strategy is set)
- Strategic initiatives you designed get implemented and work (new territory structure improves productivity, new comp plan drives behavior)
- You become the "go-to" for GTM strategic questions
- Cross-functional leaders seek your input proactively
Who You're Supporting
Primary Stakeholders:
- Sales leadership (VP/CRO) - need strategic recommendations and planning support
- Finance - partner on capacity planning, comp modeling, revenue forecasting
- HR - partner on hiring plans and org design
- Your manager (Kassie) - need high-quality strategic analysis and project leadership
- Exec team - consume your analysis for board meetings and strategic decisions
What They Care About:
- Sales leadership: "Tell me how to hit my number and scale efficiently."
- Finance: "Give me accurate forecasts and don't blow the sales budget."
- HR: "Help me plan hiring so we're not scrambling."
- Exec team: "Give me confidence we're making the right strategic bets."
Requirements
- 5+ years in revenue operations, sales strategy, finance, or management consulting (need strategic thinking track record)
- Advanced Excel/Google Sheets and data analysis skills (can build complex financial models)
- SQL or BI tool experience (Looker, Tableau, etc.) for self-service data analysis
- Experience with GTM transformations or 0→1 strategy work (not just maintaining steady-state ops)
- Strong business acumen (understand unit economics, SaaS metrics, go-to-market levers)
- Executive communication skills (can distill complex analysis into clear recommendations)
- Comfort with ambiguity and fast-changing priorities
- Direct communication style with low ego (fits manager's culture)
- Experience working remotely and influencing distributed teams