Director of Sales - Bay Area

ARANGO; San Francisco (CA); Hybrid; USD 180,000 - 280,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Hybrid/remote with travel

Job summary

Arango is seeking a Player‑Coach Regional Sales Leader to expand and lead our enterprise go‑to‑market across the Western U.S., with Bay Area preference. This role blends hands‑on deal ownership with regional coaching, mentoring reps, and owning strategic opportunities.

You will drive new business, manage key accounts, and represent ArangoDB’s value in the market. Requires a track record in value‑based selling and MEDDPICC discipline, with willingness to travel and lead from the front.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of enterprise software sales experience.
• 3+ years in front-line leadership roles.
• Experience with MEDDPICC or similar disciplined sales methodologies.
• Proven track record in value-based selling with senior stakeholders.

Responsibilities

• Lead and own regional enterprise opportunities with quota.
• Coach and develop a high-performing West Coast sales team.
• Collaborate with Marketing, Product, and Solutions Engineering to strengthen pipeline.
• Maintain MEDDPICC discipline in qualification, forecasting, and deal reviews.
• Travel across Western U.S. and nationally as needed.

Skills

Enterprise software sales

Front-line leadership

MEDDPICC discipline

Value-based selling

Executive stakeholder management

Executive presence

Travel willingness

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

Director of Sales - Bay Area

About Arango:

Arango delivers a unified, natively multimodel contextual data platform that powers AI agents, assistants, and applications with the unified, current, and trusted business context needed to reason, decide, and act at scale.

The Arango Contextual Data Platform connects fragmented enterprise data with LLMs, copilots, and AI agents through a simplified architecture delivered out of the box. By combining graph, vector, document, key-value, and search capabilities in a single platform, Arango eliminates the complex stacks many organizations build to operationalize enterprise AI.

Trusted by organizations including NVIDIA, HPE, the London Stock Exchange, PSI CRO, the U.S. Air Force, NIH, Siemens, Transient.AI, Matpriskollen, and Articul8, Arango helps enterprises move from AI pilots to reliable production systems faster while lowering infrastructure complexity and total cost of ownership. Arango is a proud member of the NVIDIA Inception Program and the AWS ISV Accelerate Program. Learn more at arango.ai, LinkedIn, and G2.

Location

Bay Area (hybrid / remote with travel across Western U.S. and nationally/ West Coast ownership, with the Bay Area preferred.)

About the Role

We are seeking a Player-Coach Regional Sales Leader to expand and lead our enterprise go-to-market efforts across Western U.S. / West Coast ownership, with the Bay Area preferred. This is both an individual quota and a regional/team — blending hands‑on deal ownership with regional coaching and execution. You’ll drive new business, manage key strategic accounts, and mentor account executives while representing ArangoDB’s value in the market. The ideal candidate thrives in value‑based, consultative selling, leverages MEDDPICC rigor, and brings experience from a “playbook”‑style organization where sales excellence, process, and discipline are cultural cornerstones.

Key Responsibilities

Lead and Sell

• Carry an individual and regional quota; directly own strategic enterprise opportunities.
• Lead from the front — run discovery, orchestrate complex multi‑stakeholder pursuits, and close business.
• Coach and develop a high‑performing sales team aligned to ArangoDB’s value‑based sales motion.

Drive GTM Execution

• Build repeatable regional GTM plays aligned to company strategy and industry verticals.
• Collaborate cross‑functionally with Marketing, Product, and Solutions Engineering to strengthen the regional pipeline and execution velocity.
• Maintain rigorous MEDDPICC discipline in qualification, forecasting, and deal reviews.
• True player‑coach role

Customer & Partner Engagement

• Build executive‑level relationships with key customers, prospects, and regional partners.
• Represent ArangoDB at regional events, conferences, and partner summits — evangelizing our data and AI vision.
• Partner closely with the alliances and partner teams to activate and co‑sell through Western U.S. / West Coast ownership, with the Bay Area preferred.
• Personally create pipeline, own strategic opportunities, and close business,
• coaching reps in live opportunities, including discovery, qualification, executive engagement, deal strategy, negotiation, and close planning.
• Pipeline creation / new‑logo hunting (screening criterion).
• Building the West Coast regional GTM, including whitespace identification, target‑account strategy, vertical/use‑case plays, and repeatable regional motions.
• Opportunities are tied to measurable business value
• CIO, CTO, CDO, Heads of Data/AI, Engineering leadership, and other senior business stakeholders.

Operational Excellence

• Forecast accurately using Salesforce with disciplined pipeline hygiene.
• Analyze territory performance, identify white space, and continuously refine coverage and focus.
• Model accountability, urgency, and precision in execution.

Skills & Experience

• 10+ years of enterprise software sales, with at least 3+ years in a front‑line leadership capacity.
• Proven record of meeting or exceeding quota in complex, multi‑stakeholder sales cycles.
• Background in value‑based selling and working within MEDDPICC discipline, especially around qualification, deal reviews, forecasting, and pipeline hygiene or similar structured methodologies.
• Experience selling deep‑tech infrastructure (data platforms, databases, AI/ML, or cloud technologies).
• Strong executive presence and ability to lead boardroom‑level conversations with CIO, CDO, or VP‑level
• Stakeholders.

• Data‑driven operator with excellent pipeline management, forecasting, and coaching habits.
• High‑energy, enthusiastic communicator who thrives in a fast‑paced, scaling environment.
• Willingness to travel across Western U.S. / and nationally as needed
• Proven work in a high‑performance, process‑driven sales organization where value selling, pipeline rigor, and accountability are part of the culture.
• We are not looking for a leader who wants to manage from the sidelines; we want someone who still actively sells, opens doors, builds territory, and makes the team better.
• Fluent in English in both written and spoken forms

What Makes Arango Special?

At Arango, we believe that AI is only as powerful as the data foundation. Our mission is to help organizations build AI systems that can reason, decide and act based on unified, current, and trusted business context at scale. We are helping define a new category of infrastructure: the contextual data layer for AI.

Working at Arango means:

• Contributing to cutting‑edge AI and data infrastructure
• Collaborating with experienced engineers, marketers, and product leaders
• Helping shape how enterprises build AI‑powered applications

If you're excited about the intersection of AI, data, and social media, we’d love to hear from you.