Head of Sales

tl;dr

• Agave is a fast-growing AI platform for construction, fresh off a $15M Series A from Accel and YC ($20M+ total funding). You'll work directly with our CEO/co-founder to build and lead our growing sales team, taking Agave from $X-XXm in ARR to $XX-XXXm ARR over the next 3 years.

• Your success will be measured by the team's output. You'll start hands-on by closing deals alongside our AEs as you ramp, to learn the nuances of our motion and products. Then, you’ll build and scale the machine: recruiting and ramping reps, coaching the team, owning forecast and pipeline, standing up less-mature sales motions, and developing sales leaders under you.

• We're looking for someone who has managed quota-carrying AEs for 2+ years, has worked at a fast-growing startup at/near our stage, and has personally closed deals in an overlapping GTM motion. Construction/blue-collar vertical sales experience is preferred, not required. In-person in SF strongly preferred, and willingness to travel here often if you’re remote is required. Learn more about us here (link).

Why are we hiring this role?

• We've hit product-market fit on our core product: 550+ customers and $X-XXm ARR. The core motion works and converts predictably. Our AI products are the fastest-growing part of the business: a third of new deals now include one, and we signed 8 new channel partnerships in the last month alone. What we don't have is someone who can scale it past our current stage, as we expand our platform to many products with individually significant revenue streams.

• Our CEO/co-founder has been the acting head of sales since day one and is now the bottleneck on coaching, hiring, defining and training new sales motions, and many more critical tasks. This role takes that over and expands it going forward.

• You’ll step into a motion that already works: refined collateral, meeting templates, a clean CRM, SEs who run demos and handle domain depth, and strong inbound and referral volume converting at a high rate.

• You’ll grow the current system and help build what doesn't yet exist, like defining pricing and value props for new products on our expanding platform, hiring and retaining talent for new roles, building new motions from scratch.

• No CRO planned above this role; you own the function and report to the co-founder/CEO. As the team grows, you’ll lead a growing sales org and manage sales managers by end of 2027.

Why this is a can't-miss role

• The market is enormous and under-built. Construction is a $12T global industry running on software built 20-50 years ago, much of it on-prem with no APIs. We spent 3 years building the rails to read and write across those systems, and we use them to deploy AI agents for invoicing, expenses, compliance, billing, financial reporting, risk-tracking and more.

• You’ll scale the sales org of a generational company. The next 3 years take Agave from $X-XXm to $XX-XXXm ARR, and the org that carries it is yours to design: the reps, the managers under you, the motions, the playbooks.

• Early-stage upside without early-stage risk. 550+ customers, hockey-stick growth, and a $15M Series A from Accel. You get the ownership and scope of a Series A with a downside most Series As don't have.

• Backed by people who've done this in construction. Accel, YC, and investors and operators from Procore, Autodesk, PlanGrid, and Plaid.

• Direct line to the CEO, no CRO above you, and a mandate to build leaders beneath you. This is the seat where you do the best work of your career, and the title and scope grow with it.

Responsibilities

From day one, the team's number is yours.

• Own the team's output, across new-logo and expansion revenue. You'll carry the team's aggregate quota and be accountable for every rep hitting their individual one. Own pipeline health, forecast accuracy, and CRM hygiene. Know exactly where the number is coming from, and where it's headed and why.

You’ll ramp by learning our motion.

• Close deals yourself. You'll join our AE rotation and run your own discovery calls, demos (with our Solutions Engineers), proposals, and negotiations. Not to hit a number; to build fluency in the nuances of our motion fast, so that everything you build afterward is grounded in it.

• Audit everything. You'll sit in on rep calls, review and improve our CRM, talk to tons of customers and partners, and come back with a written view of what's working, what's broken, and what you'd change and why.

After, you’ll grow the team and the machine.

• Recruit and ramp. The highest-leverage thing you'll do. Source, interview, hire, and onboard our next AEs and other GTM roles. Own the ramp plan and the ramp timeline.

• Coach and develop. 1:1s, call reviews, and deal coaching that make each rep measurably better. Diagnose where deals stall and unblock them. Manage underperformance directly and early.

• Turn what works into a playbook. Call scripts, templates, CRM workflows, dashboards, enablement, territory and quota design proposals. Run a weekly Sales Review with the whole company.

• Partner with the founders. ICP definition and GTM strategy for each product launch, pricing and packaging structure for existing and new products, and the GTM hiring plan. You'll work with Account Management, Partnerships, Delivery, Product, and Engineering on anything that touches our customers.

Requirements

Required

• Hands-on selling experience. You've personally closed deals in the last few years, and you'll close deals here during your ramp to learn the motion.

• 2+ years managing 3+ quota-carrying AEs. You've directly managed reps and hit a team number, not just your own. You've hired, ramped, coached, and let people go, and you can walk us through a specific example of each.

• Startup stage fit. You've done this role (or similar) at a company at or near our size and grown it from there. Someone whose experience is running a team inside a large, established sales org may struggle here, because most of the job is building things that don't exist yet without the abundant resources of a larger company.

• Motion fit. You've sold five-figure deals with faster sales cycles and inbound-skewed lead flow. Our motion is high-throughput, not six-month enterprise cycles.

• In-person / willing to travel . Based in SF (preferred), or willing to travel to our SF HQ at least 1 week per month (minimum requirement).

Strongly preferred

• Experience selling in a construction/blue-collar vertical; we'll make exceptions for strong fit on other dimensions.

• A track record of staying and growing: multiple promotions at 1+ company, no pattern of short stints.

• Joined a company at an early stage (<$15m ARR) and helped take it to mid/growth/late stage.

• AI fluency: you use AI daily in your own selling and management workflow, and you'd raise the team's bar for using it

• Experience as a sales leader, or a top sales IC working under a great sales leader, at high-growth startup

Nice to have

• 4+ years closing B2B SaaS deals

• You bring 1-2 strong reps with you (sign of the best candidates)

• Experience managing managers, or evidence you're ready to

• Built or scaled an outbound or SDR function

• Multi-product platform sales experience

• Experience co-selling with channel partners; you and your team will regularly co-sell with partner reps across the construction tech ecosystem

What we're looking for

• Proactive builder. Self-directed, fills gaps without being asked. We can trust you to disqualify a poor-fit customer instead of signing them, and to hold your team to the same bar.

• Coaching ability. You can watch a call, name the one change that would have moved the deal, and teach it in a way that sticks with motivated reps.

• Clear, persuasive communication. You write crisp emails and documents, and can generate sharp counterpoints to customer hesitations on the fly. You raise your team's communication abilities.

• Reads people well. You know when to listen and when to push, and when a rep needs pressure versus backing.

• Product curiosity. You want to understand how the product actually works, in more detail than is typical for a salesperson.

Benefits

• Equity: competitive equity, so you share in the upside you're helping create.

• Healthcare: we cover 90% of your healthcare costs with several plan options.

• 401k: we match 100% of your contributions, up to 4% of annual salary.

• Performance Bonuses: we offer annual performance bonuses when we hit company growth goals. For 2026, the bonus is 15% of your base salary or OTE. We've had these bonuses for the last 3 years, and expect to continue to have them in subsequent years.

• Relocation: sizable relocation bonus for folks currently located outside of the Bay Area, and a bonus for anyone (even within the Bay Area) who moves within a 15-minute walk of our office.

• Breakfast & Dinner, delivered: breakfast and dinner stipends through DoorDash. Plus a kitchen stocked with coffee, snacks, drinks, and more.

• Gym: on-site gym with Peloton, squat rack, Tempo, Yoga setup, and more.

• Visa: we sponsor Visas (H1B, TN, etc.) for candidates who are a good fit!

• Commuter benefits: employees can make pre-tax contributions toward commuting costs, and we'll cover the full cost of a Muni pass for those using public transit.

• Office Visits : if you are remote, we will provide company-sponsored trips to our HQ in SF at least every other month. We’ll coordinate trips for other remote employees to coincide during “remote visit” weeks to maximize your touchpoints with teammates.

Interview Plan

1. Intro Screen (30 min.) [Virtual] informal chat for you to learn more about the role. We'll ask for details on your past roles and what you're looking for next. You’re welcome to ask lots of questions about whether working at Agave makes sense for you.

2. Experience Deep Dive (1 hr) [Virtual]deeper dive into your sales experience with our CPO. We'll ask for details on your sales history and dig into 1-2 of your most challenging deals/sales projects to learn more about your background. You’ll have 5-10min at the end to ask us any questions you’d like

3. Mock Sales Call (1 hr) [Virtual] mock sales call where an Agave co-founder plays a prospect, and you run a discovery call and drive next steps. We provide detailed directions in a Google doc and you spend ~3 hours preparing for the call.

4. Sales Coaching Session: [Virtual] Role-play where you will provide coaching on previous calls to Account Executives.

5. Onsite (60 min. x 5 people) [In-person in SF; we pay for your trip]: you'll interview with each co-founder and other members of our team. This will be a deeper dive into your experience, sales fluency, and overall fit. Each interview is 1hr: 45min for our questions and 15min for yours.

6. Call with our main partner at Accel. (45 min.) [Virtual] Our main partner at Accel will discuss the role and responsibilities in depth.

7. Reference Checks : References from 2-3 former reps and 1-2 former managers.

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