Activations Manager, Startups

Vercel•New York City, NY

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Vercel is seeking a leader to build and grow its Startups Activations team, which works with early-stage startups and helps founders make infrastructure decisions and adopt Vercel early. The role involves recruiting and developing a team drawn from varied backgrounds, including former founders, developers, and early-career sellers, and building a high-velocity, repeatable activation motion using AI, automation, and product signals. The manager will establish team processes, coach sellers, and create playbooks that can scale across the Startups organization. The role is hybrid for employees within a predetermined commuting distance of Vercel offices in San Francisco, New York, London, or Berlin, with in-office anchor days on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Employees beyond that commuting distance work fully remotely. The position owns activation, conversion, and bookings targets, along with pipeline health, forecasting accuracy, and team performance. It collaborates across Marketing, Product, Growth, RevOps, Solutions Engineering, and the Greenfield and Install Base teams to support seamless customer handoffs as startups scale.

Requirements

At least 5 years of experience in SaaS sales or startup go-to-market, including at least 2 years managing quota-carrying sellers.
A track record of hiring and developing early-career talent and people from non-traditional backgrounds into top performers.
Experience building or running a high-velocity sales motion with volume, speed, and discipline.
Ability to discuss architecture and tradeoffs with technical founders and credibility with engineers.
Curiosity about AI-native development and the tools shaping how startups build and ship.
A builder's mindset, balancing system creation and strategy with hands-on execution.
A growth mindset, resilience, and strong shared ownership.

Nice To Haves

Experience as a founder, early-stage operator, or developer.
Experience building a team or motion from zero inside a high-growth company.
Experience with startup ecosystems, including accelerators, VCs, founder communities, or developer communities.
Experience selling developer tools, infrastructure, or AI products to startups.

Responsibilities

Recruit, onboard, and ramp a diverse team of former founders, developers, and early-career sellers, while building a talent bench for future account executives and leaders.
Coach and develop sellers through one-on-ones, call reviews, and skill-building sessions to help them become credible technical advisors to founders.
Design a high-velocity activation motion combining outbound, product-led signals, community, and ecosystem partners such as accelerators, VCs, and AI tooling.
Help early-stage founders understand how Vercel's platform and Agent Stack can support building, shipping, and scaling.
Use AI and automation to increase team impact, identify patterns in usage and signups, and turn successful approaches into repeatable playbooks.
Own activation, conversion, and bookings targets; define leading indicators of long-term customer growth and hold the team accountable to them.
Inspect pipeline health, maintain forecast accuracy, and manage performance against activity, conversion, and quota.
Collaborate with Marketing, Product, Growth, RevOps, Solutions Engineering, and Greenfield and Install Base teams to ensure seamless handoffs as startups scale.