Business Development Manager

Decode Talent; Calgary; Hybrid; CAD 90,000 - 150,000; Full time

Job summary

Decode Talent in Calgary is seeking an experienced B2B sales professional to own the top of the funnel and close mid-size engagements, while building enterprise accounts.

You will influence targeting, messaging and selling as an early sales hire, with latitude to shape segments and approach; remote within Canada with occasional in-person collaboration in Calgary.

Qualifications

• Five+ years in B2B sales, including staffing, recruitment, or technical SaaS.
• Proven ability to close deals: discuss past value, cycle, and procurement.
• Experience running enterprise sales with long cycles and multiple stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Build and own outbound pipeline into mid-market and enterprise accounts.
• Multi-thread accounts across engineering leadership, talent acquisition, and procurement.
• Run discovery to understand technical needs and operating environment.
• Qualify in both directions with CPHR/technical teams, and say no when needed.
• Close mid-sized deals end-to-end, including rate negotiation and top accounts.
• Navigate enterprise procurement processes and vendor onboarding.
• Keep the pipeline accurate in Close CRM and Apollo.
• Feed learnings back into positioning and messaging.

Skills

B2B sales

Enterprise deals

Remote work

Closing skills

Tools

Close CRM

Apollo

Job description

Decode Talent is a Calgary-based engineering and software talent advisory firm. It was founded by two cousins who share not only the same name, but the same vision for how recruitment can be done better through advisory services, data and technology.

Here is what will make your job easier than it would be at the staffing firms you'll be competing against.

• Engineers vet our engineers. The most common complaint about technical staffing is that recruiters can't tell a strong engineer from a confident one. Our technical screening is run by engineers who have shipped production systems, so when a candidate reaches a VP of Engineering they have already been assessed by a peer.
• A Chartered Professional in Human Resources (CPHR) vets the fit. Technical capability is only half of why placements succeed or fail. Our CPHR assesses whether a candidate will genuinely work well inside a particular organisation, and whether a client's operating environment is one where a placement can succeed at all. That second question matters more than the industry likes to admit — most failed placements are not failures of skill.
• The practical consequence is that we qualify in both directions. We turn down engagements where we can see the operating conditions will not support the hire. You will have the standing to walk away from a bad-fit account, and that is a far more powerful position to sell from than desperation.
• Technical leadership with real scale behind it. Our CTO brings 25 years in engineering leadership, including multiple companies taken through billion-dollar exits. That experience shapes how we assess talent and how we advise clients on what they actually need to hire.
• A recruitment platform we built ourselves. We run on our own ATS and recruitment technology rather than reselling someone else's. The R&D behind it has qualified for SR&ED and other Canadian innovation tax credits, and we keep investing in it as a core part of the business.

The role

This is a full-cycle seller's job, not a meeting-setter's. You will own the top of the funnel and close mid-sized engagements yourself, while building and multi-threading the larger enterprise accounts that take longer to land.

You are one of our earliest dedicated sales hires. That means real influence over how we target, message and sell — and it means comfort with ambiguity is not optional.

What you'll do

• Build and own outbound pipeline into mid-market and enterprise accounts, using your own research and judgment rather than working a handed-down list.
• Multi-thread accounts across engineering leadership (CTO, VP Engineering, Director of Engineering), talent acquisition, and procurement — recognising that these three audiences care about very different things.
• Run discovery well enough to understand both the technical need and the operating environment behind it, then translate that into an engagement our delivery team can staff.
• Qualify in both directions. Work with our CPHR and technical team to assess whether an account is one we can genuinely succeed in, and be willing to say no when it isn't.
• Close mid-sized deals end to end, including rate negotiation, and support the founding team on the largest enterprise pursuits.
• Navigate enterprise procurement: master service agreements, vendor onboarding, preferred supplier lists, security and compliance reviews.
• Keep the pipeline honest in our outbound stack (Close CRM, Apollo) and forecast accurately enough that we can plan delivery capacity against it.
• Feed what you learn in market back into our positioning, targeting and outbound messaging.

What you'll bring

• Five or more years in B2B sales, with meaningful time in staffing, recruitment, professional services or technical SaaS.
• A demonstrable closing record. Be ready to talk through specific deals: what you sold, at what value, over what cycle, and how you got procurement to yes.
• Experience running an enterprise motion — long cycles, multiple stakeholders, MSAs and vendor onboarding — rather than only transactional or SMB selling.
• Enough technical fluency to hold a credible conversation with a VP of Engineering about their stack and hiring needs. You don't need to code; you do need to know the difference between a platform team and a product team.
• The judgment to disqualify. We would rather you walked away from an account early than dragged a poor-fit deal through delivery.
• The self-direction to run a remote territory without someone checking your activity daily.
• Excellent written communication. Much of your outbound will be judged on the quality of a first sentence.

Nice to have

• Existing relationships with engineering or talent leaders in the Canadian or US tech market.
• Experience selling contract or contingent workforce solutions, including familiarity with VMS and MSP environments.
• Background in a startup or scale-up where you helped build a sales function rather than inherit one.

Why this role

You will be selling something that survives scrutiny from both sides of the table. Our differentiators are operational rather than cosmetic — the dual vetting, the leadership, and the platform are real, and you can put them in front of a sceptical engineering leader or a sceptical HR director without flinching.

You will also have unusual latitude. As an early sales hire reporting directly to the founding team, you will help decide which segments we chase and how we talk to them, and you will see the effect of those decisions quickly.

Compensation and logistics

• Full-time. Base salary plus uncapped commission; we'll discuss specifics early in the process so neither of us wastes time.
• Remote within Canada, with a preference for candidates in Calgary or elsewhere in Alberta for occasional in-person collaboration.