Sales Operations Lead

Optics11 Life; Amsterdam; On-site; EUR 120,000 - 160,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

International team

30 days holiday

Team lunches & events

Competitive salary & benefits

Job summary

Optics11 is seeking a Sales Operations Lead to scale an expanding sales organization. You will own the CRM initiative, standardize processes and drive forecasting and governance across a global team.

You will lead a major CRM implementation, establish a single source of truth for sales data, and design incentives, reporting and process improvements with Finance, HR and Marketing.

Qualifications

• 5+ years in Sales Operations, Revenue Operations or similar B2B role.
• Proven ownership of a CRM project and cross-functional collaboration.
• Experience building dashboards and KPI frameworks for sales teams.
• Excellent command of English; Dutch preferred.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead the CRM project as business owner with an implementation partner.
• Translate commercial processes into clear requirements and designs.
• Own CRM post go-live as the single source of truth for Sales data.
• Own the forecasting process, cadence, and pipeline reviews with Directors.
• Build KPI dashboards on pipeline, deal velocity and bookings.
• Design the lead-to-order process including pricing governance and discounts.
• Support Bid Management with processes and go/no-go reviews.
• Design and maintain sales compensation plans with Finance and HR.
• Support annual planning, territory design and capacity planning.
• Build onboarding and enablement for new sales hires.
• Collaborate across Marketing, Finance, IT and Operations for a seamless lead-to-order flow.
• Drive continuous process/tool improvements with automation.

Skills

CRM ownership

Forecasting & pipeline management

Dashboard design

Stakeholder collaboration

Sales operations

Education

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in business/engineering

Tools

Salesforce

HubSpot

Power BI

Job description

Optics11 is a fast-growing technology company developing advanced fiber-optic sensing solutions for some of the world’s most demanding environments.

Our solutions protect critical infrastructure such as sea-lanes, offshore energy assets and subsea cables. In Underwater Security, OptiBarrier provides immediate, over-the-horizon threat detection and OptiArray is our low-power optical thin-line towed array for unmanned underwater vehicles and submarines. In Energy, OptiFinder enables early detection of faults in high-voltage infrastructure.

The Role

As Sales Operations Lead you will make Optics11’s sales organization predictable and scalable while headcount grows aggressively. You will be part of the Global Sales team, reporting to the SVP Global Sales, and work closely with the Sales Directors, Bid Management, Marketing, Finance, HR, Legal, IT and Operations.

This is a new, senior individual contributor role. You turn a country-based sales team into one operating model: a single forecast, one set of processes and one CRM as the backbone. In your first year you lead a major CRM project as business owner, working with an implementation partner, so that all sales processes, reporting and forecasting are built on it.

Responsibilities

• Own and lead the CRM project as business owner, coordinating the implementation partner, internal stakeholders, planning, scope and budget
• Translate commercial processes into clear requirements and a target design, and ensure migration, testing, training and adoption are delivered to a high standard
• Own the CRM after go-live as the single source of truth for Sales, including data quality, governance, reporting and roadmap
• Own the sales forecasting process and cadence, including stage definitions, exit criteria and pipeline reviews with the Sales Directors
• Build the KPI framework and automated dashboards on pipeline, conversion, win rates, deal velocity and bookings
• Design and document the commercial process from lead handover to quote-to-order, including pricing governance, discount approvals and deal desk
• Support Bid Management with process, templates and a structured go/no-go and bid review approach
• Design and maintain commission plans for the own sales team, including target setting, modelling, individual agreements and payout calculations, with Finance and HR
• Support annual planning, including territory design, targets and capacity planning
• Build the onboarding and enablement foundation for new sales hires
• Collaborate with Marketing, Finance, IT and Operations to create one seamless lead-to-order process
• Contribute to continuous improvement of processes and tools, with automation as the default

Nice to Have

• Experience in fiber optics, sensing, energy, defense or another high-tech environment
• Experience with complex, long-cycle sales including tenders, bids or government procurement
• Experience with multiple CRM platforms (e.g. Salesforce and HubSpot) and data migration between them
• Deal desk experience, including pricing governance and discount approvals
• Experience designing sales compensation and commission plans in B2B
• Experience in a scale-up with rapid commercial team growth

What we offer

• Join one of Europe’s fastest-growing deep-tech scale-ups.
• Real impact: your work directly shapes our growth and success.
• A great team in an international organisation with colleagues from more than twenty nationalities.
• A competitive salary and benefits package.
• 30 days of holiday per year.
• Fresh team lunches five times a week, plus regular team activities and company events.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in business, economics, engineering, information management or a related field, or equivalent experience
• 5+ years of experience in Sales Operations, Revenue Operations or a similar commercial operations role in B2B
• Proven experience as business owner, product owner or project lead in a CRM implementation or migration, working with an implementation partner
• Solid knowledge of an enterprise CRM platform such as Salesforce
• Proven ownership of a forecasting and pipeline management process
• Experience building dashboards and KPI frameworks (CRM reporting, Power BI or similar)
• Excellent command of English, written and spoken; Dutch preferred
• Strong communication skills, the confidence to challenge senior colleagues and a collaborative, hands‑on mindset

Screening

You will work with clients in the defense and security sectors. Obtaining a Certificate of No Objection issued by the AIVD, the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, is mandatory. This means you will need to undergo a security screening. We will explain the process and guide you through the applicable requirements.