Sales Operations Manager, Foundry

Job description

At Instructure, we believe in the power of people to grow and succeed throughout their lives. Our goal is to amplify that power by creating intuitive products that simplify learning and personal development, facilitate meaningful relationships, and inspire people to go further in their education and careers. We do this by giving smart, creative, passionate people opportunities to create awesome. And that's where you come in: Foundry is a new division inside Instructure, built to generate new revenue with AI-built products. We operate as a portfolio of small pods, each charged with one product bet, under tight weekly governance. They operate independently, with dedicated resources, separate from the core business on purpose: different pace, different governance, and different rewards. Our goal is to generate meaningful revenue within 12 to 18 months, so this isn’t an innovation lab. We’re building scaled businesses that customers pay for and retain well, and we’re measuring ourselves on revenue, not activity. Instructure reaches roughly half of higher education in the United States, connecting a credential network of more than 13,000 institutions. Pair that distribution and data with a fast-moving team that builds leanly, and you have something no competitor has. That’s the opportunity New Markets exists to take. How we work A pod is two people: a Founder and a Builder, both hands on, close to the customer. The bet is deliberate: we invest in agent-developer tooling and tokens, not in headcount. An operating team of growth marketing, revenue operations, sales overlay, and G&A supports every pod, so founders stay on building products. Every pod inherits an underlying platform with common design, development, and deployment harnesses, so no pod rebuilds the plumbing. Each pod runs through key phases with regular checkpoints where a governing board reviews progress or recommends a pivot or kill. The rhythm is fast and transparent. Investor-style updates go out weekly. Demos and keep-or-kill checkpoints happen twice a month. Transparency is the operating model. What you will do You’re the operational engine behind New Markets’ newest product bets. You’ll own the end-to-end go-to-market lifecycle for pod products, from market sizing and early strategy through launch, performance tracking, and the handoff when a product graduates into the core. When a pod proves customers will pay, you make that motion repeatable and hand it to the full seller base. This is a blank-page job: the playbook doesn’t exist yet, and you’ll write it. The role reports directly to the President, New Markets, with a matrixed dotted line to Instructure’s Go-to-Market Strategy and Operations leadership. What you’ll own You own go-to-market operations across the portfolio, and you’re the voice of the New Markets business in the rooms where commercial decisions get made. In practice, that means you’ll: - Own the end-to-end GTM lifecycle for pod products. Carry each product from market sizing and early strategy through launch planning, field execution, and post-launch performance tracking. - Shape the go-to-market approach with each pod. Partner with Pod Founders, marketing, and the sales overlay on ideal-customer definition, pricing and packaging input, channel strategy, and competitive positioning. - Design the sales motion. Build the coverage models, pipeline processes, forecasting cadences, and rules of engagement for the first seller cohort on each product. - Build the reporting backbone. Stand up and maintain the analytics in Salesforce and Excel that track pipeline health, win/loss, attach rates, average contract value, and renewal trends, and turn that data into insight leadership can act on. - Run launch readiness. Lead CRM buildout in Salesforce, playbook documentation, tool configuration, and alignment across enablement, marketing, finance, deal desk, and IT. - Own the graduation playbook. Define the criteria and the integration motion for products that complete a pod’s journey, so the full seller base can carry and sell the product without a messy handoff. - Be the voice of the business. Translate early-stage complexity into clear, data-backed narratives in planning forums, business reviews, and executive sessions, and support annual planning across capacity, quota, incentive design, and growth roadmaps. What we expect - Blank page to operating framework. You go from nothing to a working system without a lot of hand-holding, then improve it as results and field feedback come in. - Rigor under ambiguity. You structure messy, early-stage go-to-market problems, build the analytical frame, and land a recommendation you can defend. - Accuracy you stand behind. The insights and reporting you put in front of leadership are right, and you own them. - Influence without authority. You move product, finance, marketing, and sales toward a shared plan without managing any of them. What we’re looking for - Five or more years in sales operations, revenue operations, or a related go-to-market function. - Real experience supporting new-product launches or emerging-business initiatives, where the playbook didn’t exist yet. - Three or more years hands-on in Salesforce, building and maintaining reports, dashboards, and data structures. - Advanced Excel, comfortable building models, running variance analysis, and turning raw data into decision-ready output. - Excellent written and verbal communication, including executive-level presentations. A bachelor’s degree is preferred. Your first 90 days - Month 1. Immerse yourself in the New Markets portfolio, the key stakeholders, and the current go-to-market infrastructure. Understand where each product sits in its lifecycle and find the most pressing operational gaps. - Month 3. Establish a clear view of performance across active pods: pipeline health, coverage, and leading indicators. Build or refine the reporting framework in Salesforce and Excel, and set a recurring operating rhythm with product and sales leadership. - Month 6. Own and drive the go-to-market motion for at least one pod through a checkpoint. Deliver an integration-readiness recommendation for any product approaching graduation, and present a prioritized roadmap for improving New Markets go-to-market operations to senior leadership. This role isn’t for everyone Anti-patterns. You should probably pass if: - You need an established playbook and a stable process to operate inside. Here you build the playbook. - You’re uncomfortable being measured on the accuracy of your numbers and the clarity of your recommendations. - You’d rather own a single, well-defined process than the whole messy go-to-market surface across a portfolio. - A predictable, slow-changing scope is what you want. The portfolio shifts as pods move through their checkpoints. Compensation Base pay is market-competitive. You’ll be paid fairly against the market for the work, so you’re not taking a pay cut to be here. But the base is the floor, not the prize. The real value is the upside you drive. As part of the operating team, you share in a cash bonus pool tied to portfolio milestones across pods. Targets are set as pods launch, so you’ll know what the portfolio is running at. The upside is asymmetric, and it’s earned, not granted. There’s a hard floor: below a threshold level of attainment, milestone payouts don’t trigger at all. Above it, hitting and stretching past your targets pays meaningfully. This is built to be the kind of outcome that changes your trajectory, not a routine bonus. The rewards go to the people who build something customers pay for. They don’t reward effort, tenure, or proximity. What this means in plain terms. Real ownership. Real accountability. Real upside for the people who build a business, and very little for those who don’t. If that trade excites you, you’re the person we’re looking for. If it worries you, trust that instinct. Get in on all the awesome at Instructure! We offer competitive, meaningful benefits in every country where we operate. While they vary by location, here's a general idea of what you can expect: - Competitive compensation, plus all full-time employees participate in our ownership program - because everyone should have a stake in our success. - Flexible work culture. Our remote, hybrid and in-office collaboration spaces vary by role, team and location. - Generous time off, including local holidays and our annual “Dim the Lights” period in late December, when teams are encouraged to step back and recharge based on departmental needs. - Comprehensive wellness programs and mental health support - Learning and development resources, including professional development tools and tuition reimbursement, to support your growth - The technology and tools you need to do your best work - Motivosity employee recognition program - A culture rooted in inclusivity, support, and meaningful connection We believe in hiring great people and treating them right. The more diverse we are, the better our ideas and outcomes. Instructure is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We comply with applicable employment and anti-discrimination laws in every country where we operate. All employees must pass a background check as part of the hiring process. To help protect our teams and systems, we’ve implemented identity verification measures. Candidates may be asked to verify their legal name, current physical location, and provide a valid contact number and residential address, in accordance with local data privacy laws. Any attempt to misrepresent personal or professional information will result in disqualification.