Deal Design Manager (Commercial Architect)

Cognite; Houston (TX); On-site; USD 120,000 - 180,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive compensation

401(k) with employer matching

Health, dental, vision & disability

Job summary

Cognite is seeking a Deal Design Manager to serve as a strategic advisor and commercial architect for high-value enterprise software transactions. You will work with Sales Reps, Regional Revenue Presidents, and cross-functional teams to translate complex data integration needs into optimized commercial packages.

In this role, you will lead the commercial design workstream, craft innovative deal frameworks, and mentor the GTM team to scale repeatable playbooks while safeguarding Cognite’s margins

Qualifications

• Experience translating complex industrial data into commercial options.
• Ability to design creative deal structures with multiple paths to yes.
• Strong collaboration with Sales, Legal, Finance, and Product teams.

Responsibilities

• Design commercial architectures for multi-year SaaS transactions and present options to sales leaders.
• Lead governance for pricing models, margins, and contract clauses to protect long-term value.
• Coordinate deal terms across Legal, Finance, Product, and Executive teams to reduce approval bottlenecks.

Skills

Strategic advisory

Deal design

Cross-functional leadership

GenAI governance

Tools

Salesforce SFDC

CPQ tools

Job description

USA (Houston)

What Cognite is: Relentless to achieve

Cognite operates at the forefront of industrial digitalization, building AI, and data solutions that solve the world’s hardest, highest-impact problems. With unmatched industrial heritage and a comprehensive suite of AI capabilities, including low-code AI agents, Cognite accelerates the digital transformation to drive operational improvements.

We thrive in challenges. We challenge assumptions. We execute with speed and ownership. If you view obstacles as signals to step forward - not backwards - you’ll feel right at home here.

Our Moonshot is bold: Unlock $100B in customer value by 2035, and redefine how global industry works. Join us in this venture where AI and data meet ingenuity, and together, we will forge the path to a smarter, more connected industrial future.

About Cognite and our "Mission Moonshot"

Cognite is a global leader in industrial software, driving the generative AI era across manufacturing, energy, and continuous process industries. Our flagship Industrial DataOps platform, Cognite Data Fusion®, breaks down complex IT/OT/ET data silos to build a unified, contextualized data foundation. Through our strategic partnerships with global hyperscalers and system integrators, we help the world's industrial supermajors transition from localized "lighthouse" pilots to repeatable, high-ROI autonomous workflows scaled across the entire enterprise.

As we create Cognite 3.0, to fuel our high-velocity go-to-market engine, we are introducing a strategic, elite commercial profile: the Deal Design Manager.

The Opportunity: Deal Design Manager

This is a high-influence, non-customer-facing position within our Global Revenue Operations organization. Operating under the leadership of the VP of Deal Desk, you will serve as a strategic advisor, and commercial architect for our high-value enterprise software transactions across our global markets.

In this role, you do not own the sales quota or the customer relationship. The Sales Representative is the ultimate account owner and is fully accountable for closing the deal. Instead, you operate as their Trusted Commercial Advisor. You partner closely with Sales Reps and Regional Revenue Presidents, translating complex industrial data integration requirements into highly optimized, creative commercial packages; Your objective is to provide the expert guidance, structuring options, and trade‑off analyses necessary to find the optimal commercial package. One that successfully secures the customer's commitment while prioritizing and safeguarding Cognite's core commercial drivers (ARR growth, Service margin, and product scalability).

Your mandate is to Lead, Shape, and Multiply: leading the commercial design workstream, shaping robust and creative deal frameworks, and actively multiplying the capabilities of the wider GTM team by establishing repeatable playbooks and mentoring the team.

Key Responsibilities & Outcomes

• Commercial Deal Architecture: Partner as a strategic advisor to sales leaders on complex, multi-year enterprise SaaS transactions. Design creative commercial options, trade-offs, and alternative structures where no clear precedent exists, ensuring Sales is equipped with multiple paths to yes.
• Strategic Collaborative Navigation, Principled Negotiation & Margin Governance: Act as the primary enabler for revenue compliance. Appropriately challenge pricing model deviations and unbundle service-heavy agreements to optimize high-margin software components that bring value to the customer. Act as the commercial subject matter expert. When requested, participate directly in customer-facing commercial discussions to explain pricing models, structured contract clauses, or helping the customer understand the value of our deal.
• Cross-Functional Orchestration: Lead the alignment of deal terms across Legal, Finance, Product Management, and the Executive Team to streamline internal approval bottlenecks. Guide Sales Reps in optimizing the commercial elements of every transaction. Help unbundle service-heavy agreements, suggesting structured software-led alternatives or partner-driven delivery models that protect Cognite’s long-term gross margins while matching the customer's budget constraints.
• GenAI-Powered Proposal Review & Governance (Shape): Champion the optimization of our commercial governance process. Deploy, calibrate, and leverage advanced GenAI tools (e.g., automated proposal engines, LLM-based contract/SLA scanners) to conduct comprehensive "first-pass" reviews of draft proposals, identifying non-standard liabilities, revenue recognition risks (ASC 606), and pricing leaks instantly. Convert complex pricing frameworks, margin calculators, and negotiation playbooks into self-service, reusable assets.
• Operational Leverage & Scalability: Design automated GenAI prompts, CPQ templates, and structured discounting guardrails that create leverage, making the immediate GTM team significantly more autonomous and effective.
• Revenue Ops Continuity: Maintain pristine data hygiene within Salesforce (SFDC), auditing deal terms, tracking contract exceptions, and building predictable executive margin-impact models before signing. Actively support, Sales Enablement team to establish training modules on CPQ best practices, Salesforce database hygiene, and AI-driven deal auditing, raising the collective operational bar across the global revenue operations team

A snapshot of our many perks and benefits as a Cogniter

• Competitive compensation
• 401(k) with employer matching
• Competitive health, dental, vision & disability coverages for employees and all dependents
• We’re globally recognized domain experts with an international presence that spans Phoenix, Houston, Oslo Tokyo, Bengaluru, and Abu Dhabi.

Cognite is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment at work and is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive the same level of consideration for employment.