Manager/ Director, Sales Development

Job description

We are building AI to simulate the world through merging art and science. We believe that world models are at the frontier of progress in artificial intelligence. Language models alone won’t solve the world’s hardest problems – robotics, disease, scientific discovery. Real progress requires models that experience the world and learn from their mistakes, the same way that humans do. And this kind of trial and error can be massively accelerated when done in simulation, rather than in the real world. World models offer the most clear path to general-purpose simulation, changing how stories are told, how scientific progress is made and how the next frontiers of humanity are reached. Our team consists of creative, open minded, caring and ambitious people who are determined to change the world. We aspire to continuously build impossible things and our ability to do so relies on building an incredible team. If you are driven to do the same, we'd love to hear from you. ABOUT THE ROLE *Open to hiring remote across the US and Canada — we also have offices in NYC, San Francisco, and Seattle We are growing our commercial team and looking for growth-minded leaders who are passionate about the future of AI and content creation. As our first leader within Sales Development, you will build and scale our founding BDR organization. This role is equal parts people leadership and systems building. You’ll directly manage and develop our early BDR team (currently two people) while building the infrastructure, processes, and outbound strategies that define the future of prospecting at Runway. We’re not looking to replicate traditional SDR playbooks — we want someone excited to rethink sales development through AI-powered workflows, automation, product signals, and highly personalized outreach, while helping shape how Runway wins in the enterprise market. WHAT YOU’LL DO - Lead, mentor, and grow Runway’s founding BDR team, creating a high-performance culture centered around curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement - Build the systems, processes, and infrastructure that power a modern AI-first sales development organization - Define how AI tooling, automation, and human creativity work together across outbound prospecting, research, personalization, and pipeline generation - Turn product usage signals, API activity, and inbound demand into scalable enterprise opportunity generation workflows - Develop highly targeted, vertical-specific outbound motions aligned to Runway’s evolving use cases and customer needs - Continuously test and refine messaging, sequencing, workflows, and enablement programs to improve team effectiveness - Partner closely with Sales, Marketing, Creative, and RevOps to shape ICP strategy, lead routing, and overall GTM execution - Work alongside sales leadership to help define and scale Runway’s enterprise sales motion WHAT YOU’LL NEED - 5+ years of experience in sales, growth, or GTM leadership roles - Experience managing and developing high-performing SDR/ BDR teams - Strong systems-thinking mindset with experience building outbound processes and operational infrastructure from the ground up - Deep interest in AI-native workflows and a strong point of view on how AI will reshape modern prospecting and sales development - Experience operating in product-led, usage-based, or highly technical GTM environments - Highly analytical and data-driven, with the ability to use insights to drive strategy and execution - Comfortable operating in fast-moving, ambiguous environments and excited to experiment and iterate quickly - Strong communicator and cross-functional collaborator with a builder mentality Runway strives to recruit and retain exceptional talent from diverse backgrounds while ensuring pay equity for our team. Our salary ranges are based on competitive market rates for our size, stage and industry, and salary is just one part of the overall compensation package we provide. There are many factors that go into salary determinations, including relevant experience, skill level and qualifications assessed during the interview process, and maintaining internal equity with peers on the team. The range shared below is a general expectation for the function as posted, but we are also open to considering candidates who may be more or less experienced than outlined in the job description. In this case, we will communicate any updates in the expected salary range. Lastly, the provided range is the expected salary for candidates in the U.S. Outside of those regions, there may be a change in the range, which again, will be communicated to candidates. WORKING AT RUNWAY Great things come from great teams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwmj4ato2kw&ab_channel=Runway We’d love to hear from you. We’re committed to creating a space where our employees can bring their full selves to work and have equal opportunity to succeed. So regardless of race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, religion, origin, ability, age, veteran status, if joining this mission speaks to you, we encourage you to apply. More about Runway - Universal World Simulator https://runwayml.com/world-simulator.html - GWM-1 https://runwayml.com/research/introducing-runway-gwm-1 - Gen-4.5 https://runwayml.com/research/introducing-runway-gen-4.5 - General World Models https://runwayml.com/research/introducing-general-world-models - Robotics SDK https://runwayml.com/research/introducing-runway-gwm-1#robotics-section - Conversational Real-time Agents https://runwayml.com/research/introducing-runway-gwm-1#avatars-section - Runway Studios https://runwayml.com/studios We're excited to be recognized as a best place to work: Crain's https://www.crainsnewyork.com/awards/best-places-work-2023 | InHerSight https://www.inhersight.com/companies/best/city/new-york-city-ny | BuiltIn NYC https://builtin.com/awards/new-york-city/2024/best-places-to-work | INC https://www.inc.com/best-workplaces/2024