Director of Sales

About the role

The Director of Sales is responsible for leading Inductive Automation’s Account Executive organization, Sales Managers, and direct sales execution. This role owns the sales floor operating rhythm, rep development, pipeline discipline, forecast accountability, and progress toward company sales goals. The Director of Sales provides one clear point of leadership for the AE teams while partnering closely with Business Development, Sales Operations, Sales Engineering, Marketing, Customer Success, Distributors, Integrators, and Leads Management. This is a full-time, on-site role.

Responsibilities

• Leading the Account Executive teams and Sales Managers to meet or exceed company sales goals
• Establishing and maintaining a consistent sales operating cadence, including manager 1:1s, pipeline reviews, forecast reviews, opportunity inspection, account planning, and performance follow-up
• Developing Sales Managers into strong frontline leaders through coaching, accountability, performance management, and leadership development
• Ensuring Account Executives are consistently coached, developed, and held accountable according to role level, experience, book of business, and performance expectations
• Translating annual company sales goals into clear team targets, pipeline expectations, monthly execution priorities, and measurable sales activities
• Monitoring pipeline health, forecast accuracy, account coverage, opportunity progression, close plans, and sales performance metrics to identify gaps and improve execution
• Partnering with Sales Operations to ensure sales data, reporting, tools, dashboards, and processes support effective sales leadership and rep productivity
• Partnering with Business Development to ensure leads, Core Sales transitions, distributor/channel activity, strategic initiatives, and demand-generation efforts are effectively converted into revenue
• Reinforcing customer-first selling behavior, account stewardship, professional conduct, and adherence to company sales policies
• Leading the AE organization inside established account assignment, reassignment, extension, distributor, integrator, and credit policies without creating unnecessary escalation or exception-driven behavior
• Supporting strategic account growth by improving account planning, executive engagement, multi-site expansion, cross-functional coordination, and long-term customer development
• Maintaining a high-accountability, low-drama sales culture focused on growth, clarity, coaching, fairness, and professional behavior
• Identifying skill gaps across the AE organization and developing training, coaching, enablement, and performance-improvement plans in partnership with Sales Effectiveness and Sales Managers
• Participating in hiring, onboarding, development, performance reviews, promotion readiness, and progressive discipline for Sales Managers and Account Executives
• Collaborating with Sales Engineering, Marketing, Customer Success, Order Processing, Business Development, and other internal teams to improve the customer and rep experience
• Providing regular reporting to the VP of Sales and senior leadership on sales performance, forecast, pipeline, risks, rep development, team health, and progress toward company goals

Requirements

• 5+ years of proven experience leading direct sales teams in an industrial software, manufacturing software, SaaS, technical platform or complex B2B sales environment
• 5+ years of experience managing Sales Managers and demonstrated ability to develop frontline sales leaders
• Strong sales credibility with Account Executives, including senior reps, without relying on hero-selling or exception-driven leadership
• Demonstrated ability to build repeatable sales cadences, improve forecast discipline, inspect pipeline, coach opportunities, and drive execution
• Strong coaching instincts with the ability to develop junior and senior level sellers
• Calm, direct, fair, and consistent leadership style
• Comfortable operating in a rules-based sales environment with clear account ownership expectations, customer-first policies, and cross-functional decision processes
• Strong judgment in balancing revenue growth, customer experience, rep accountability, channel relationships, and long-term account stewardship
• Ability to lead through change, reduce internal friction, and create clarity during periods of organizational transition
• Strong communication skills with the ability to align Sales Managers, Account Executives, peer leaders, and executive stakeholders