Business Development Representative

Business Development Representative

Ethena is looking for a Business Development Representative to join our GTM Engineering & Business Development team. This is a small team that supports the whole commercial motion (sales, marketing, and expansion/customer success). We move fast, prioritize high intent leads most likely to convert, and iterate quickly. You'll work closely with our other BDR and your manager (who is also our GTM Engineer!). This is a phone-heavy (but not phone-only!) role. Most of your pipeline will come from outbound prospecting, and much of that from cold calls. You'll also handle a steady flow of inbound leads from people who already know who we are, and have strong leads/signals supplied from GTM Engineering.

Ethena has a loyal customer base (96% of customers renew every year) and a product line that keeps growing: compliance training, Hotline & Case Management, policy, disclosures, and Phishing Simulator. That gives you a lot to talk about with HR, Legal, and Compliance leaders. Our buyers are busy and get too many emails. The BDRs who win here pick up the phone, earn 30 seconds of attention, and turn them into a meeting.

You'll get real autonomy. You can test new talk tracks, build your own call blocks around live buying signals, and use AI-assisted workflows to research an account in minutes. We want someone who treats cold calling as a craft: you listen back to your own calls, tighten your opener, and come back sharper the next day. We're looking for someone who is a quick learner, a problem solver, and is a self-starter.

Reports to Jamie Dodson, Lead, GTM Engineering & Business Development

What you'll do

Outbound (about 60% of your time)

• Run daily cold call blocks into target accounts. Book first meetings for our Account Executives with HR, People, Legal, and Compliance leaders.
• Build multi-channel sequences — call, email, and LinkedIn. Tie them to real signals like job changes, competitor renewals, regulatory updates, and hiring activity.
• Write and refine talk tracks, openers, and objection responses. Share what works so the whole team gets better.
• Research accounts and personas before you dial, so every conversation starts with a relevant reason to talk.
• Multi-thread into top accounts, and partner with AEs and CSMs to find new personas and expansion opportunities at existing customers.

Inbound (about 40% of your time)

• Follow up on marketing-sourced leads: demo requests that don't book, Sample Training requests, MQLs, event leads, webinar attendees, and inbound email.
• Hold yourself to a speed-to-lead standard. Call high-intent leads first.
• Work the "didn't book" and "no-show" segments hard. They're our highest-intent leads and the most likely to go cold.
• Qualify against our ICP, then hand off to the right AE or CSM.
• Tell Marketing which campaigns, events, and content actually turn into pipeline.

Across both

• Track your conversion from outreach to connect to meeting, find where you're losing people, and fix it (or propose fixes to the team)
• Keep HubSpot and Salesforce accurate, so our pipeline and attribution reporting holds up.
• Build and use AI-assisted workflows for research and first-touch drafting that save time without sounding templated.

What makes a great candidate

• Proven cold calling success. You have 1–2 years in a BDR or SDR seat, you've made high-volume dials against a quota, and you can point to meetings booked from cold conversations.
• You're comfortable with rejection and hard to rattle. You can handle an objection live, stay curious, and still ask for the meeting.
• You coach yourself. You listen back to your calls, ask for feedback, and adjust quickly.
• Your writing is clear, fast, and human. Your follow-up emails read like a person wrote them.
• You know how to prioritize between a fresh demo request and your next call block.
• Experience with tools like Amplemarket, Clay, HubSpot, Salesforce, and a power dialer or similar calling platform.
• Experience A/B testing talk tracks and messaging, and reading the results honestly.
• Experience with AI tools for account research and copywriting.
• A plus: experience selling to HR, Legal, or Compliance personas, or working in a regulated field.
• A plus: experience at more than one B2B SaaS company.

What's going to be the hardest part

• The phone is unforgiving. Most dials won't connect, and many conversations end quickly. You'll need the resilience to have a great conversation on call 60 as well as call 6.
• Balancing inbound and outbound. Inbound leads need speed, and outbound needs protected focus time. You'll decide every day how to protect your call blocks without letting a hot lead sit.
• A steep learning curve. You'll need to get up to speed fast on our products, customers, personas, and the compliance landscape so you can think on your feet. Ethena is a startup — we move fast and are very busy! We'll onboard you, but much of your learning in this area will be self-directed,
• Cutting through the noise. Our buyers are busy and get too much outreach, so you'll need to show us you can earn attention.

$80,000 - $100,000 a year The pay structure for this role is a combination of base pay and commission (70% base salary, 30% variable).

At Ethena, we're committed to fair and equitable compensation. We carefully evaluate each candidate's skills and qualifications to provide our best possible offer upfront. Our no-negotiation policy ensures that our first offer is always our best offer, promoting pay equity throughout our organization.

Physical Demands

This is sedentary work that primarily involves sitting/standing in a home office environment.

Location

Ethena is a remote-first organization and is currently hiring candidates based in the United States.

We are not currently offering employer visa sponsorship for this role.

AI Usage in Interviews:

We're big fans of AI and use it heavily in our day-to-day work. That said, to ensure fairness and accurate skill assessment, we do not allow the use of AI tools (including note takers, transcription tools, or recordings) during interviews. If you have questions or need accommodations, we're happy to chat — just let us know.

Benefits

The benefits offered for this position can be found here. We provide unlimited PTO.

How to Apply

Applications for this position will be accepted via our job board. Excited about the opportunity, but worried you don't meet all the requirements? Apply anyway, and give us both the chance to find out. We welcome you to read more about our approach to job descriptions by our Chief People Officer, Melanie Naranjo. Curious to know what it's like to interview with us? Read more here.

Ethena is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer and is committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace. We believe that a successful organization is one that celebrates its employees for who they are, who they love, and the unique lens through which they experience the world. Ethena does not discriminate based on race, color, ancestry, religion, sex, national origin, sexual orientation, age, citizenship, marital status, disability, gender identity, Veteran status, or other legally protected status. We understand that our differences make us better. They empower us to learn from each other, lean on each other, and create a product and community that models the behavior we hope to see in others.

Disclaimer: The salary, other compensation, and benefits information are accurate as of the date of this posting. The Company reserves the right to modify this information at any time, subject to applicable law.