Sales Manager, Digital Natives

Job description

About the team OpenAI’s mission is to build safe artificial general intelligence (AGI) which benefits all of humanity. This long-term undertaking brings the world’s best scientists, engineers, and business professionals into one lab together to accomplish this. In pursuit of this mission, our Go To Market (GTM) team is responsible for helping customers learn how to leverage and deploy our highly capable AI products across their business. The team is made of Sales, Solutions, Support, Marketing, and Partnership professionals that work together to create valuable solutions that will help bring AI to as many users as possible. ABOUT THE ROLE OpenAI is building a dedicated Digital Natives vertical focused on high-growth technology and internet companies shaping the future of software. As a Sales Manager, you will recruit, develop, and lead a team of senior Account Directors responsible for landing and expanding OpenAI’s largest and most strategic Digital Native customers. You will define how we win in this segment — establishing the operating cadence, deal strategy, and vertical GTM playbook for engaging sophisticated, technically fluent buyers building AI into their core products. You will operate as a hands-on front-line leader: deeply involved in complex opportunities, elevating sales discipline, and shaping how OpenAI scales enterprise revenue in the most dynamic segment of the market. This role is based in San Francisco, CA. We use a hybrid work model of 3 days in the office per week and offer relocation assistance to new employees. KEY RESPONSIBILITIES - Recruit and develop a high-performing team of Account Directors. - Establish a coaching culture centered on rigorous deal reviews, structured 1:1s, and clear performance standards. - Raise the talent bar continuously through thoughtful hiring, development, and accountability. - Architect and refine the GTM strategy for high-growth tech and internet companies. - Shape territory design, account prioritization, and coverage models aligned to OpenAI’s evolving enterprise segmentation. - Codify repeatable sales motions in a fast-changing AI landscape. - Implement disciplined pipeline and forecast management practices with high data integrity. - Set clear expectations around opportunity qualification, multi-threading, and deal quality. - Balance new logo acquisition with strategic expansion and platform adoption. - Coach teams through multi-product, multi-stakeholder opportunities involving APIs, platform integrations, and AI-enabled product innovation. - Partner closely with security, legal, and compliance teams to navigate complex enterprise environments. - Help customers translate AI capabilities into product differentiation, revenue acceleration, and operational leverage. - Collaborate with Marketing to shape vertical messaging and demand generation strategy. - Provide structured, prioritized feedback to Product on feature gaps, packaging, pricing, and competitive dynamics. - Work with Finance on commercial structures that balance growth, margin, and risk. - Align closely with Technical Success and post-sales teams to ensure strong implementation outcomes and durable expansion paths. WHAT GREAT LOOKS LIKE - Builds from zero to one: establishes structure without bureaucracy. - Develops senior sellers into strategic operators, not just quota carriers. - Operates with forecast accuracy and commercial discipline. - Wins complex, high-visibility deals in competitive markets. - Elevates cross-functional standards through clarity, rigor, and low ego leadership. WHAT WE’RE LOOKING FOR - 15+ years in enterprise sales or GTM leadership, including significant front-line management experience. - Proven success leading enterprise motions in high-growth, technical markets. - Experience building or scaling verticalized sales teams. - Track record closing and expanding complex, multi-million dollar enterprise opportunities. - Strong background in data-driven sales management and operational rigor. - Technical fluency (APIs, platform architecture, AI/ML concepts) with the ability to engage CTOs, Heads of Product, and senior engineering leaders. - Experience operating in non-standard or emerging GTM environments. - Demonstrated ability to hire, coach, and retain top enterprise talent. - Comfort with ambiguity and rapid iteration. - Public company experience with high accountability standards. - Experience in consumption-based or platform sales models. - Exposure to AI-native or developer-first sales motions. - Experience across both high-growth VC-backed environments and scaled enterprise organizations. - Direct experience selling to Digital Native tech companies. About OpenAI OpenAI is an AI research and deployment company dedicated to ensuring that general-purpose artificial intelligence benefits all of humanity. We push the boundaries of the capabilities of AI systems and seek to safely deploy them to the world through our products. AI is an extremely powerful tool that must be created with safety and human needs at its core, and to achieve our mission, we must encompass and value the many different perspectives, voices, and experiences that form the full spectrum of humanity. We are an equal opportunity employer, and we do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, age, veteran status, disability, genetic information, or other applicable legally protected characteristic. For additional information, please see OpenAI’s Affirmative Action and Equal Employment Opportunity Policy Statement https://cdn.openai.com/policies/eeo-policy-statement.pdf. Background checks for applicants will be administered in accordance with applicable law, and qualified applicants with arrest or conviction records will be considered for employment consistent with those laws, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance, the Los Angeles County Fair Chance Ordinance for Employers, and the California Fair Chance Act, for US-based candidates. For unincorporated Los Angeles County workers: we reasonably believe that criminal history may have a direct, adverse and negative relationship with the following job duties, potentially resulting in the withdrawal of a conditional offer of employment: protect computer hardware entrusted to you from theft, loss or damage; return all computer hardware in your possession (including the data contained therein) upon termination of employment or end of assignment; and maintain the confidentiality of proprietary, confidential, and non-public information. In addition, job duties require access to secure and protected information technology systems and related data security obligations. To notify OpenAI that you believe this job posting is non-compliant, please submit a report through this form https://form.asana.com/?d=57018692298241&k=5MqR40fZd7jlxVUh5J-UeA. No response will be provided to inquiries unrelated to job posting compliance. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to applicants with disabilities, and requests can be made via this link https://form.asana.com/?k=bQ7w9h3iexRlicUdWRiwvg&d=57018692298241. OpenAI Global Applicant Privacy Policy https://cdn.openai.com/policies/global-employee-and-contractor-privacy-policy.pdf At OpenAI, we believe artificial intelligence has the potential to help people solve immense global challenges, and we want the upside of AI to be widely shared. Join us in shaping the future of technology.