Sales Onboarding Manager

Perplexity; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 170,000; Full time

Job summary

Perplexity in San Francisco seeks a Sales Onboarding Manager to own onboarding for Enterprise, Commercial AEs and BDRs from Day 1 to field certification. You will design curriculum, run sessions, manage cohort logistics and certify readiness.

Collaborate with Product, Marketing and Revenue Operations to ensure timely, scalable ramp as we grow. You will build live and self-paced content, maintain up-to-date materials, and measure success with clear rubrics.

Qualifications

• 2–4 years in sales enablement, onboarding or sales training with quota experience is a strong plus.
• Proven ability to design and run end-to-end onboarding or ramp programs with measurable impact.
• Excellent live facilitation in virtual and in-person settings for varied experience levels.
• Experience designing certifications or skills assessments using trusted rubrics.
• Strong program management with the ability to coordinate overlapping cohorts and stakeholders.
• Familiarity with MEDDICC, messaging frameworks, outbound prospecting and full sales cycle.
• Comfort learning complex AI products quickly and teaching them clearly.
• Fluency with Salesforce, a conversation-intelligence tool and an LMS or content hub.

Responsibilities

• Own the sales onboarding program for BDRs and AEs, defining ramps, milestones and time-to-productivity targets.
• Build the BDR ramp with prospecting training and multi-channel sequences, aligning tools and handoffs to AEs.
• Create and maintain modules, playbooks, and knowledge checks; update as products and processes evolve.
• Lead live sessions (virtual and in-person) on products, sales process, discovery, demos and tools.
• Manage cohort logistics, sessions, calendars, attendance and pre-work with Recruiting and sales leaders.
• Design and run role-specific certifications; calibrate rubrics and provide actionable feedback.
• Provide visibility to frontline managers and help reinforce onboarding through coaching and reviews.
• Measure ramp metrics and scale the program with AI-powered content and automation.

Skills

Sales enablement

Onboarding

Facilitation

Program management

Curriculum design

Coaching

Communication

Tools

Salesforce

Conversation intelligence tool

LMS

Job description

Perplexity is hiring sellers fast, and every new seller has to learn a fast-moving product line: Enterprise, Comet, Computer and the API. We're looking for a Sales Onboarding Manager to own how new sellers go from their first day to selling on their own. You'll build the program, keep it current, run it, and certify that each seller is ready before they sell independently.

This is a high-ownership, highly visible role on a small Sales Enablement team. You'll partner with the Sales Enablement Lead and work closely with sales leaders, frontline managers, Product, Product Marketing, Solutions and Revenue Operations. Your goal is a robust, relevant, progressive and measurable ramp that gets faster as we scale.

About the role

The Sales Onboarding Manager owns the onboarding experience for Enterprise and Commercial Account Executives (AEs) and Business Development Representatives (BDRs), from Day 1 through field certification. You'll design the curriculum, keep it up to date as the product changes, lead the sessions yourself, manage the logistics of placing each cohort into the right sessions, and run the certifications that decide when a new hire is ready.

Company-wide new-hire orientation is owned by a separate onboarding role. Ongoing training for ramped sellers is owned by Sales Enablement. You'll partner with both so new sellers move smoothly from orientation into their sales ramp and then into working independently with ongoing training from Enablement.

Responsibilities

• Own the sales onboarding program. Co-design and run role-based ramps for BDRs and for Enterprise and Commercial AEs, including learning objectives, milestones and time-to-productivity targets for each stage. Where BDRs and AEs need the same foundations, they learn them together. Where the jobs differ, each gets its own track.

• Build the BDR ramp. Teach new BDRs prospecting and outbound: ideal customer profile and persona research, account and territory rules, multi-channel sequences, cold calling, cold email, qualification, and clean handoffs to AEs. Get BDRs productive in the prospecting stack, including Salesforce, Apollo and the dialer.

• Build and maintain content. Create and update modules, playbooks, talk tracks, demo guides, knowledge checks and self-paced content. Update materials as products, pricing, positioning and process change, and retire anything out of date.

• Facilitate live sessions. Lead engaging, interactive sessions (virtual and in person) on Perplexity's products, sales process, customer personas, discovery, demos, objection handling and tools. Bring in subject-matter experts from Product, Product Marketing, Solutions and top sellers.

• Run cohort logistics. Work with Recruiting and sales leaders to track incoming hires, assign each one to the right sessions for their role, segment and start date, and manage calendars, attendance, make-ups and pre-work.

• Certify field readiness. Design and run role-specific certifications using clear rubrics. For BDRs, that means cold-call, email and qualification certifications. For AEs, it means pitch, discovery and demo certifications. Both roles also certify on tools. Calibrate scoring with BDR and sales managers, give actionable feedback, and decide when a new hire is ready to sell on their own.

• Partner with frontline managers. Give managers visibility into each new hire's progress, flag risks early, and equip managers to reinforce onboarding through coaching and call reviews.

• Measure and improve. Track completion, certification pass rates and ramp attainment. For BDRs, also track activity, meetings booked and accepted, and pipeline sourced. For AEs, also track time to first meeting, pipeline and closed business. Use the data and new-hire feedback to improve the program each cohort.

• Scale with leverage. Use AI tools, including Perplexity's own products, to build content faster, personalize learning paths and automate repetitive logistics so the program keeps up with hiring.

What we're looking for

The best candidates are strong facilitators who also design programs and run operations well. You can command a room, build a curriculum from a blank page, and keep a complicated cohort calendar running smoothly. You hold a high bar for readiness and know how to tell a manager when a seller isn't there yet.

Must-haves

• 2-4 years in sales enablement, sales onboarding or sales training, ideally at a high-growth B2B SaaS or AI company. Experience carrying a quota or managing sellers is a strong plus.

• A track record of designing and running a sales onboarding or ramp program end to end, with measurable impact on ramp time or productivity.

• Excellent live facilitation, virtual and in person, with sellers at different experience levels, from early-career BDRs to seasoned AEs.

• Experience designing and running certifications or skills assessments (such as cold-call, pitch, discovery or demo) using rubrics that sales managers trust.

• Strong program management and operational rigor. You can run several overlapping cohorts, schedules and stakeholders without dropping details.

• Working knowledge of modern sales methods (such as MEDDICC, Command of the Message or similar), outbound prospecting and the full sales cycle from first touch to close.

• Comfort learning technical products quickly and explaining them clearly. You can learn an AI product well enough to teach and demo it.

• Fluency with the sales tech stack, such as Salesforce, a conversation-intelligence tool and an LMS or content-management platform.

• High ownership and comfort with ambiguity in a fast-moving environment where the product changes weekly.

Nice to have

• Experience onboarding sellers for AI, developer or other technically complex products.

• Background in instructional design or adult learning.

• Previous experience as a BDR/SDR or as a BDR/SDR manager.

• Experience building onboarding for both Enterprise and Commercial/velocity sales motions, or for Customer Success roles.

• Experience standing up enablement tooling (LMS, content hub, call library) or reporting on ramp metrics.

• Experience using AI to build content or automate enablement operations