Sales Operations Manager, Foundry

About the Role

Foundry is a new division inside Instructure, built to generate new revenue with AI-built products. We operate as a portfolio of small pods, each charged with one product bet, under tight weekly governance. Pods operate independently, with dedicated resources, separate from the core business—different pace, different governance, and different rewards. Our goal is to generate meaningful revenue within 12 to 18 months, not just activity. We’re building scaled businesses that customers pay for and retain well, measuring success on revenue.

Instructure reaches roughly half of higher education in the U.S., connecting a credential network of over 13,000 institutions. Paired with a fast-moving team that builds leanly, this creates an unmatched opportunity.

How We Work

A pod consists of two people: a Founder and a Builder, both hands-on and close to the customer. We invest in agent-developer tooling and tokens, not headcount. An operating team supports every pod with growth marketing, revenue operations, sales overlay, and G&A, allowing founders to focus on building. Pods inherit a shared platform with common design, development, and deployment harnesses—no rebuilding plumbing. Each pod progresses through key phases with regular checkpoints where a governing board reviews progress or recommends pivots or kills. The rhythm is fast and transparent: weekly investor-style updates, biweekly demos, and keep-or-kill checkpoints.

Responsibilities

• Own the end-to-end go-to-market (GTM) lifecycle for pod products, from market sizing and early strategy through launch, performance tracking, and handoff to the core business.
• Shape the GTM approach with each pod, partnering with Pod Founders, marketing, and sales overlay on ideal-customer definition, pricing, packaging, channel strategy, and competitive positioning.
• Design the sales motion: build coverage models, pipeline processes, forecasting cadences, and rules of engagement for the first seller cohort on each product.
• Build the reporting backbone in Salesforce and Excel to track pipeline health, win/loss, attach rates, average contract value, and renewal trends, turning data into actionable insights.
• Lead launch readiness: CRM buildout in Salesforce, playbook documentation, tool configuration, and alignment across enablement, marketing, finance, deal desk, and IT.
• Own the graduation playbook: define criteria and integration motion for products transitioning from pods to the full seller base, ensuring a seamless handoff.
• Be the voice of the New Markets business in commercial decision-making, translating early-stage complexity into clear, data-backed narratives for planning forums, business reviews, and executive sessions.
• Support annual planning across capacity, quota, incentive design, and growth roadmaps.

Requirements

• Five or more years in sales operations, revenue operations, or a related GTM function.
• Real experience supporting new-product launches or emerging-business initiatives where the playbook didn’t exist yet.
• Three or more years hands-on in Salesforce, building and maintaining reports, dashboards, and data structures.
• Advanced Excel skills: comfortable building models, running variance analysis, and turning raw data into decision-ready output.
• Excellent written and verbal communication, including executive-level presentations.
• Bachelor’s degree preferred.

Skills

• Ability to build an operating framework from scratch with minimal hand-holding and iterate based on results and feedback.
• Rigor under ambiguity: structure messy, early-stage GTM problems, build analytical frameworks, and defend recommendations.
• Accuracy you stand behind: insights and reporting are precise, and you own them.
• Influence without authority: move product, finance, marketing, and sales toward a shared plan without direct management.

First 90 Days

• Month 1: Immerse yourself in the New Markets portfolio, stakeholders, and current GTM infrastructure. Identify operational gaps for each product based on its lifecycle stage.
• Month 3: Establish a clear view of performance across active pods (pipeline health, coverage, leading indicators). Build or refine the reporting framework in Salesforce and Excel, and set a recurring operating rhythm with product and sales leadership.
• Month 6: Own and drive the GTM motion for at least one pod through a checkpoint. Deliver an integration-readiness recommendation for any product approaching graduation, and present a prioritized roadmap for improving New Markets GTM operations to senior leadership.

Anti-Patterns

This role may not be a fit if you:

• Need an established playbook and stable process to operate effectively—here, you build the playbook.
• Are uncomfortable being measured on the accuracy of your numbers and the clarity of your recommendations.
• Prefer owning a single, well-defined process over the entire messy GTM surface across a portfolio.
• Thrive in predictable, slow-changing scopes—the portfolio shifts as pods move through checkpoints.

Pay

Base pay is market-competitive, ensuring you’re fairly compensated without taking a pay cut. The real value lies in the upside: as part of the operating team, you share in a cash bonus pool tied to portfolio milestones across pods. Targets are set as pods launch, with asymmetric upside for hitting or exceeding them. Below a threshold level of attainment, milestone payouts don’t trigger, but above it, rewards are meaningful—designed to change your trajectory, not just supplement income. Rewards go to those who build something customers pay for, not for effort, tenure, or proximity.

Benefits

• Competitive compensation, plus all full-time employees participate in an ownership program.
• Flexible work culture (remote, hybrid, or in-office, varying by role, team, and location).
• Generous time off, including local holidays and an annual “Dim the Lights” period in late December for recharge.
• Comprehensive wellness programs and mental health support.
• Learning and development resources, including professional development tools and tuition reimbursement.
• Technology and tools to do your best work.
• Motivosity employee recognition program.
• A culture rooted in inclusivity, support, and meaningful connection.