Senior Manager, Sales Development, DACH

Job description

ABOUT AIRWALLEX Airwallex is the only unified payments and financial platform for global businesses. Powered by our unique combination of proprietary infrastructure and software, we empower over 250,000 businesses worldwide – including Brex, Navan, Qantas, SHEIN and many more – with fully integrated solutions to manage everything from business accounts, payments, spend management and treasury, to embedded finance at a global scale. Proudly founded in Melbourne, we have a team of over 2,300 of the brightest and most innovative people in tech across 27 offices around the globe. Valued at US$11 billion and backed by world-leading investors including T. Rowe Price, Visa, Mastercard, Robinhood Ventures, Sequoia, Salesforce Ventures, DST Global, and Lone Pine Capital, Airwallex is leading the charge in building the global payments and financial platform of the future. If you’re ready to do the most ambitious work of your career, join us. ATTRIBUTES WE VALUE We hire successful builders with founder-like energy who want real impact, accelerated learning, and true ownership. You bring strong role-related expertise and sharp thinking, and you’re motivated by our mission and operating principles https://www.airwallex.com/us/operating-principles. You move fast with good judgment, dig deep with curiosity, and make decisions from first principles, balancing speed and rigor. You're humble and collaborative; turn zero‑to‑one ideas into real products, and you “get stuff done” end-to-end. You use AI to work smarter and solve problems faster. Here, you’ll tackle complex, high‑visibility problems with exceptional teammates and grow your career as we build the future of global banking. If that sounds like you, let’s build what’s next. ABOUT THE TEAM The SME & Growth team at Airwallex partners with ambitious SMB and mid-market businesses that operate across borders. We help them get paid, hold and convert funds, pay suppliers and issue cards globally – all from a single financial platform. In EMEA, we are in build mode: a lean, high-calibre commercial team with strong backing, a large greenfield market and high expectations. You’ll join experienced sellers who care about sales excellence, product depth and disciplined execution. WHAT YOU'LL DO We’re looking for a highly strategic, metrics-driven and technology-forward Senior Manager, Sales Development to join our team in Berlin and build a modern, AI-enabled sales development engine across DACH and broader EMEA. You will lead and scale our SME Sales Development Representative (SDR) team and be deeply involved in building our sales machine into a large, successful, scaled, revenue-generating function across EMEA. You will manage and coach a team of outbound SDRs, set the operating rhythm, and partner closely with Sales and Marketing to drive high-quality pipeline. You will report into the Head of SME & Growth, DACH and become an inspirational, knowledgeable leader who builds a high-performing, inclusive team that can thrive and progress with Airwallex. This role is based in Berlin, with at least 3 days per week in our Berlin office. RESPONSIBILITIES - Manage the SME SDR team with hands-on leadership, including day-to-day coaching on outbound prospecting, qualification and handover to Account Executives. - Lead a team of outbound SDRs to create qualified opportunities for the sales team, owning both volume and value targets for pipeline generated. - Partner with the Head of SME & Growth, DACH to build out a high-performance SDR organisation for the region, including operating cadence, performance standards and hiring plans. - Develop and continuously refine a data-driven strategy to identify and engage new customers across priority segments and markets in EMEA, with a strong focus on outbound motions. - Work closely with Marketing to design and execute lead-generation campaigns, agree follow-up SLAs and ensure inbound leads are qualified and actioned efficiently. - Collaborate with the Account Executive team to ensure smooth, well-documented handover of opportunities in Salesforce, and to optimise funnel conversion and pipeline health. - Implement and analyse SDR KPIs and dashboards, including opportunities created, opportunity value, conversion rates and activity levels, to spot trends, diagnose issues and ensure monthly goals are met. - Hire, onboard and develop early-career sales talent; provide clear expectations, feedback and progression paths and build a motivated, performance-driven team culture. - Own and iterate SDR processes, playbooks and tooling, including best-practice use of Salesforce, Outreach or SalesLoft, and AI-enabled prospecting and workflow automation tools, to ensure a scalable, repeatable sales development motion. - Build and scale an AI-assisted outbound engine across priority ICP plays, including lead sourcing, trigger detection, account research, personalization, multithreading and sequence testing to generate high-quality pipeline. - Design a data-led upper-funnel operating model for named-account and ABM motions, including segmentation, enrichment, routing logic, multilingual outreach and experimentation across inbound, outbound and partner-sourced leads. - Partner with Sales and Marketing to translate DACH ICP plays into repeatable outbound programs, ensuring messaging, proof points and outreach sequences reflect local market needs and German-language trust expectations. - Establish clear AI and automation guardrails, testing frameworks and KPI dashboards to ensure scalable prospecting quality, compliant outreach and measurable pipeline impact. - Act as a cross-functional partner to People & Talent, Marketing, Sales and Revenue Operations to improve how we attract talent, generate pipeline and win in our core verticals. WHO YOU ARE We're looking for people who meet the minimum requirements for this role. The preferred qualifications are great to have, but are not mandatory. MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS - Relevant experience leading an outbound SDR team, ideally in a start-up or scale-up environment where outbound is a core growth lever. - Proven experience building and expanding a sales development or sales unit, including hiring, establishing processes and coaching a team to hit ambitious targets. - Demonstrated track record of hiring and developing early-career sales talent into high performers and progressing them into closing roles. - Strong experience working cross-functionally with People & Talent, Marketing and Account Executives to align on target accounts, campaigns and pipeline goals. - Excellent written, numerical and verbal communication skills, with the ability to simplify complexity for both your team and prospective customers. - Proficiency with Salesforce or another modern CRM, plus sales engagement tools such as Outreach or SalesLoft, and modern AI-enabled prospecting or workflow automation tools; comfort operating in a metrics-driven environment. - Proven experience implementing AI tools, workflow automation or agentic prospecting systems to improve personalization quality, SDR efficiency and pipeline generation outcomes. - Strong strategic thinking skills with the ability to break down complex problems and design pragmatic, scalable solutions for a high-growth environment. - Ability to foster a motivated, inclusive and performance-driven culture where SDRs feel supported, challenged and accountable. - 2+ years’ experience in a sales management or leadership role, ideally in a high-growth tech start-up or scale-up, or a proven track record of success as a senior individual contributor. - Professional fluency in German and English is required. PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS - Experience leading both inbound and outbound SDR motions, including playbook design for different lead sources, segments and ABM use cases. - Prior experience building or scaling a commercial team or new office in DACH or broader EMEA, with exposure to 0-to-1 or 1-to-10 growth phases. - Previous hands-on experience building AI-assisted upper-funnel motions, including account research, trigger-based prospecting, signal capture, multithreading and sequence optimisation. - Experience designing prospecting systems for Germany-first or DACH GTM, including localized messaging, German-language outreach and trust-led engagement strategies. - Background in fintech, banking or B2B SaaS, with familiarity across FX, payments, cards or spend management products. - Hands-on experience using structured sales methodologies and qualification frameworks such as MEDDIC, MEDDPICC or SPICED within SDR or sales teams. APPLICANT SAFETY POLICY: FRAUD AND THIRD-PARTY RECRUITERS To protect you from recruitment scams, please be aware that Airwallex will not ask for bank details, sensitive ID numbers (i.e. passport), or any form of payment during the application or interview process. All official communication will come from an @airwallex.com http://airwallex.com email address. Please apply only through careers.airwallex.com http://careers.airwallex.com or our official LinkedIn page. Airwallex does not accept unsolicited resumes from search firms/recruiters. Airwallex will not pay any fees to search firms/recruiters if a candidate is submitted by a search firm/recruiter unless an agreement has been entered into with respect to specific open position(s). Search firms/recruiters submitting resumes to Airwallex on an unsolicited basis shall be deemed to accept this condition, regardless of any other provision to the contrary. EQUAL OPPORTUNITY Airwallex is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We value diversity and anyone seeking employment at Airwallex is considered based on merit, qualifications, competence and talent. We don’t regard color, religion, race, national origin, sexual orientation, ancestry, citizenship, sex, marital or family status, disability, gender, or any other legally protected status when making our hiring decisions. If you have a disability or special need that requires accommodation, please let us know.