Manager, Revenue Operations

Overview

You're building the revenue operations function at a 35-person company that just hit a major revenue milestone and is scaling GTM. You're setting up CRM infrastructure, defining sales processes, implementing forecasting, and creating reporting dashboards. This is hands-on - you're not managing a team, you're doing the work yourself while building the foundation for future scale.

Role Snapshot

Company Context

Stage: Early-stage (35 employees, post-PMF, scaling GTM)

Size: 35 employees

Growth: Just hit revenue milestone, closed largest deal, hiring across GTM (AEs, SEs, Rev Ops)

Market Position: Infrastructure/developer tools company with strong demand ("more than we can handle")

GTM Reality

Current State:

• Small but growing sales team (hiring multiple AEs and SEs now)
• Mix of outbound and inbound motion
• Likely basic CRM setup but need structure as team scales
• No mature Rev Ops function yet - you're building it

Your Scope:

• CRM administration and data integrity
• Sales process definition and documentation
• Forecasting and pipeline management
• GTM systems and tool stack
• Compensation plan design and tracking
• Board/investor reporting on revenue metrics

What You'll Actually Do

Time Breakdown

Systems/CRM (30%) | Forecasting/Reporting (25%) | Process Design (20%) | Analysis (15%) | Ad-hoc Requests (10%)

Key Activities

• CRM cleanup and configuration: You're in Salesforce or HubSpot every day fixing data quality issues, setting up automation, building custom fields, and making sure reps are actually using it. At a 35-person company, this means directly training people and auditing pipeline.
• Building forecasting models: Creating spreadsheets and dashboards that roll up pipeline by stage, track deal progression, and give leadership visibility into revenue projections. You're probably in Google Sheets or Excel as much as your BI tool.
• Defining sales processes: Writing down what the sales stages actually mean, what activities happen at each stage, what exit criteria are, and how long deals typically take. Then getting reps to follow it.
• Tool evaluation and implementation: Figuring out what GTM stack they need - enrichment tools, sales engagement platforms, call recording, contract management. You're demoing vendors, negotiating contracts, and doing implementations yourself.
• Comp plan design: Working with leadership to create OTE structures, quota allocation, accelerators, and SPIFs that align with company goals. Then building trackers so reps know where they stand.
• Ad-hoc analysis: Leadership needs to know conversion rates by source, time-to-close by segment, or why last quarter's forecast was off by 20%. You're pulling data and presenting insights.

The Honest Reality

What's Hard

• You're building everything from scratch while the company is actively selling. There's pressure to move fast, but also to get foundation right. You'll make tradeoffs.
• Data quality is a constant battle at early-stage companies. Reps don't log activities, deals sit in wrong stages, contact info is incomplete. You're part systems admin, part process cop.
• You're a team of one (maybe two) supporting multiple AEs, SEs, and leadership who all want different things. Prioritization is hard and you'll disappoint someone.
• Processes you define now will shape how the company scales. If you design a bad comp plan or create the wrong sales stages, you'll live with it for 6-12 months. The stakes feel high.
• At 35 people, there's not always clarity on who owns what. You'll overlap with finance on revenue recognition, with marketing on lead flow, with product on usage data. Lots of alignment meetings.
• You're probably not getting a Rev Ops team to manage anytime soon. This is hands-on execution for 12-18 months minimum.

What Success Looks Like

• Sales team has clean CRM data and actually uses it without constant reminders
• Leadership can see real-time pipeline and forecast with confidence (within 10-15% accuracy)
• GTM tech stack is set up and integrated - tools talk to each other, data flows automatically
• Sales processes are documented and followed - everyone knows what stage means what
• New AEs can ramp faster because there's structure, not just tribal knowledge
• Board deck writes itself because metrics are already tracked and dashboarded

Who You're Working With

Internal Stakeholders:

• VP Sales / CRO (you report here): Wants forecast accuracy, pipeline visibility, help with hiring/comp plans
• AEs and SEs: Want CRM to be easy, comp tracking to be transparent, tools that actually help them sell
• CEO/Leadership: Want revenue metrics for board, help thinking through GTM strategy and capacity planning
• Finance: Needs revenue data for accounting, bookings vs. cash, churn analysis
• Marketing: Wants lead attribution, conversion funnel reporting, closed-loop reporting on campaign ROI

What They Need From You:

• Accurate data they can trust: No more "let me check and get back to you" - they want dashboards that are real-time and correct
• Insights, not just reports: Telling them conversion rate is 15% isn't enough - why is it 15%? What's the trend? What should we do about it?
• Making their lives easier: Automation that reduces manual work, systems that just work, clear processes so they're not guessing

Requirements

• 3-5 years in Revenue Operations, Sales Operations, or GTM Operations - you've built this before
• Hands-on CRM admin experience (Salesforce, HubSpot) - you need to be able to configure fields, workflows, and reports yourself
• Strong in Excel/Google Sheets and BI tools (Looker, Tableau, Mode) - you're building models and dashboards from scratch
• Experience at early-stage companies (seed to Series B) where you wore multiple hats and figured things out
• Understanding of B2B sales processes, pipeline management, and forecasting methodologies
• Comfortable with ambiguity - this isn't a mature Rev Ops org with runbooks, you're creating the playbook
• Bonus: Experience with GTM tools like Outreach, Gong, Clearbit, PandaDoc, ChartMogul
• Bonus: Technical background or experience with developer tools/infrastructure products