Deal Desk Manager

Job description

THE ROLE We’re hiring a Deal Desk Manager to build Exa’s deal desk from scratch. This function with standardize how we craft commercial deals with our Prospects & Customers, while also serving as the escalation point for structuring creative and complex deals that are beneficial to Exa and our Customers. Today that complexity is absorbed deal by deal across the field, RevOps, Finance, and the co-founders. Your job is to replace that with a real desk: standard structures, clear approval thresholds, fast turnaround, and a bookings discipline that holds up to board and audit scrutiny, without becoming the bottleneck that slows deals down. If you’re compelled at the prospect of building the foundation of Deal Desk where you write the pricing playbook, own the approval matrix, stand up the quoting process, and be the single accountable owner of how a deal gets structured and booked, then this is the role for you. WHAT YOU’LL OWN Deal Structuring & Pricing Guidance - Be the first call for AEs on any non-standard deal: structure options, pricing scenarios, commercial tradeoffs, and the fastest credible path to approval. - Own the commercial architecture of consumption deals: committed spend tiers, rate cards, overage and true-up mechanics, minimums, rollover, ramped commitments, and multi-year structures etc. - Build data driven discount and pricing guidance that gives sellers real latitude inside defined bands, so only genuine exceptions escalate. - Model deal economics before signature: effective rate, blended discount, ARR vs. TCV vs. consumption risk, and the margin implications of committed-use pricing. Quote-to-Cash & Approval Governance - Design and run the approval matrix and delegation of authority: what an AE can approve, what needs Sales leadership, what needs Finance involvement, and ultimate escalation to founders + CRO. - Own quoting and order form generation end-to-end, including CPQ configuration and templates that clear standard shapes without legal review. - Partner with Legal, internal and outside counsel, on redlines and non-standard terms - Drive the handoff into Finance and billing so what is signed is what is invoiced - correct start dates, billing schedules, and subscription plus consumption records. - Maintain a complete audit trail on every exception granted, so approvals are defensible and patterns become visible over time. Bookings Discipline & Revenue Governance - Own day-to-day application of Exa’s bookings policy and metrics dictionary: what counts as a booking, ramp and multi-year handling, debookings, downgrades, and mid-term amendments. - Serve as the control point for opportunity data quality at close: stage integrity, close dates, product and segment tagging, and the fields that downstream reporting and commissions depend on. Field Partnership & Deal Velocity - Sit in deal reviews and forecast calls as a commercial partner, catching structural risk early and offering remediation options. - Enable AEs and FDEs on pricing, packaging, and approval mechanics so the straightforward eighty percent of deals never need the desk at all. - Bring competitive and market pricing intelligence back into pricing strategy discussions with Sales, Product, and Finance. - Publish your own scoreboard: turnaround time, exception rate, discount trend, and where the desk is creating friction. Systems, Scale & Automation - Automate the desk as you build it by establishing templated structures, self-service quote paths, approval routing in Salesforce, and agentic assistance for first-pass deal and document review. - Partner with the Head of Revenue Systems & Technology so quoting, approvals, and billing are architected into the stack - Write the playbooks and documentation that let this function scale beyond one person (in support of the agentic first mindset) WHAT YOU BRING - 6+ years in deal desk, deal strategy, order management, sales operations, or commercial finance at high-growth B2B technology companies, including time as the accountable owner of a deal process. - Direct experience structuring consumption or usage-based commercial agreements, inclusive of committed spend, overage, true-ups, ramps etc. - Fluency in enterprise contracting mechanics: order forms, MSAs, DPAs, security addenda, and the terms that actually carry commercial weight. - Strong Salesforce fluency and hands-on experience with quoting/CPQ and approval automation. - Real modeling ability. You build the deal scenario yourself and defend the numbers in the room. - The judgment to say no to a bad structure and the pragmatism to find the version that works. You are measured on velocity and discipline both, and you do not trade one away for the other. - Comfort in a fast-moving, small-team environment where the process does not exist yet and you are expected to write it. BONUS POINTS - Working knowledge of revenue recognition (ASC 606) and how deal structure flows through bookings, ARR, and revenue - Experience at companies selling developer tools, APIs, or data infrastructure to engineering-led buyers. - Experience supporting product-led growth (self-serve, usage-based) and enterprise sales inside a single commercial architecture. - Familiarity with usage-based billing infrastructure (Stripe, Metronome, Orb, Zuora) and the CRM-to-billing data model it requires. - Hands-on with contract lifecycle tooling (Ironclad, DocuSign) and using AI to accelerate first-pass contract and deal review. WHY EXA - Category-defining company: Exa is the infrastructure layer for how AI accesses the world’s information - a market that barely existed two years ago and is now mission-critical. - Elite backing: a $250M Series C led by a16z, with Benchmark, Lightspeed, and YC doubling down, bringing Exa’s valuation to $2.2 billion. - Greenfield build: There is no legacy desk to inherit and no committee to negotiate with. You define the pricing playbook, the approval architecture, and the bookings discipline that will govern the next phase of growth. - The timing matters: Exa is at the inflection point where foundational GTM decisions compound into durable advantage. The work you do in the next twelve months will shape the next five years. Exa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.