{"id":1234047,"url":"https://alion.io/job/exa-deal-desk-manager","title":"Deal Desk Manager","company":{"id":13137,"name":"Exa","domain":"exa.ai","url":"https://alion.io/company/exa","size_band":"51-200","is_staffing_agency":false,"employer_type":"direct","is_intermediary":false,"listed_via":null,"ats_vendor":"Ashby","truth_index":{"grade":"B","score":75,"open_postings":21,"ghost_share":0,"stale_share":1,"repost_share":0,"time_to_fill_p50_days":null,"computed_at":"2026-09-28T05:45:00Z"}},"role":"Sales","role_family":"Sales","seniority":null,"employment_type":"full_time","work_mode":"on_site","remote_scope":null,"remote_scope_basis":null,"remote_working_hours":null,"hiring_geo_confidence":"structured","locations":["San Francisco, United States"],"countries":["US"],"hiring_countries":[],"hiring_countries_total":0,"salary":{"min":190000,"max":275000,"currency":"USD","period":"year","gross":null,"usd_annual":275000},"salary_estimate":null,"experience_years_min":null,"visa_sponsorship":false,"relocation_package":false,"has_equity":false,"technologies":[{"name":"AI Agents","optional":false},{"name":"Exa","optional":false},{"name":"Salesforce","optional":false},{"name":"Stripe","optional":true}],"status":"live","first_seen_at":"2026-08-13T16:15:19Z","employer_posted_date":"2026-08-13","last_verified_at":"2026-09-28T19:43:49Z","board_verified":true,"closed_at":null,"days_open":46,"trust":{"level":"ok","repost_count":null,"flags":[],"days_open":46},"description":"THE ROLE\nWe’re hiring a Deal Desk Manager to build Exa’s deal desk from scratch. This function with standardize how we craft commercial deals with our Prospects & Customers, while also serving as the escalation point for structuring creative and complex deals that are beneficial to Exa and our Customers.\nToday that complexity is absorbed deal by deal across the field, RevOps, Finance, and the co-founders. Your job is to replace that with a real desk: standard structures, clear approval thresholds, fast turnaround, and a bookings discipline that holds up to board and audit scrutiny, without becoming the bottleneck that slows deals down.\nIf you’re compelled at the prospect of building the foundation of Deal Desk where you write the pricing playbook, own the approval matrix, stand up the quoting process, and be the single accountable owner of how a deal gets structured and booked, then this is the role for you.\nWHAT YOU’LL OWN\nDeal Structuring & Pricing Guidance\nBe the first call for AEs on any non-standard deal: structure options, pricing scenarios, commercial tradeoffs, and the fastest credible path to approval.\n\nOwn the commercial architecture of consumption deals: committed spend tiers, rate cards, overage and true-up mechanics, minimums, rollover, ramped commitments, and multi-year structures etc.\n\nBuild data driven discount and pricing guidance that gives sellers real latitude inside defined bands, so only genuine exceptions escalate.\n\nModel deal economics before signature: effective rate, blended discount, ARR vs. TCV vs. consumption risk, and the margin implications of committed-use pricing.\n\nQuote-to-Cash & Approval Governance\nDesign and run the approval matrix and delegation of authority: what an AE can approve, what needs Sales leadership, what needs Finance involvement, and ultimate escalation to founders + CRO.\n\nOwn quoting and order form generation end-to-end, including CPQ configuration and templates that clear standard shapes without legal review.\n\nPartner with Legal, internal and outside counsel, on redlines and non-standard terms\n\nDrive the handoff into Finance and billing so what is signed is what is invoiced - correct start dates, billing schedules, and subscription plus consumption records.\n\nMaintain a complete audit trail on every exception granted, so approvals are defensible and patterns become visible over time.\n\nBookings Discipline & Revenue Governance\nOwn day-to-day application of Exa’s bookings policy and metrics dictionary: what counts as a booking, ramp and multi-year handling, debookings, downgrades, and mid-term amendments.\n\nServe as the control point for opportunity data quality at close: stage integrity, close dates, product and segment tagging, and the fields that downstream reporting and commissions depend on.\n\nField Partnership & Deal Velocity\nSit in deal reviews and forecast calls as a commercial partner, catching structural risk early and offering remediation options.\n\nEnable AEs and FDEs on pricing, packaging, and approval mechanics so the straightforward eighty percent of deals never need the desk at all.\n\nBring competitive and market pricing intelligence back into pricing strategy discussions with Sales, Product, and Finance.\n\nPublish your own scoreboard: turnaround time, exception rate, discount trend, and where the desk is creating friction.\n\nSystems, Scale & Automation\nAutomate the desk as you build it by establishing templated structures, self-service quote paths, approval routing in Salesforce, and agentic assistance for first-pass deal and document review.\n\nPartner with the Head of Revenue Systems & Technology so quoting, approvals, and billing are architected into the stack\n\nWrite the playbooks and documentation that let this function scale beyond one person (in support of the agentic first mindset)\n\nWHAT YOU BRING\n6+ years in deal desk, deal strategy, order management, sales operations, or commercial finance at high-growth B2B technology companies, including time as the accountable owner of a deal process.\n\nDirect experience structuring consumption or usage-based commercial agreements, inclusive of committed spend, overage, true-ups, ramps etc.\n\nFluency in enterprise contracting mechanics: order forms, MSAs, DPAs, security addenda, and the terms that actually carry commercial weight.\n\nStrong Salesforce fluency and hands-on experience with quoting/CPQ and approval automation.\n\nReal modeling ability. You build the deal scenario yourself and defend the numbers in the room.\n\nThe judgment to say no to a bad structure and the pragmatism to find the version that works. You are measured on velocity and discipline both, and you do not trade one away for the other.\n\nComfort in a fast-moving, small-team environment where the process does not exist yet and you are expected to write it.\n\nBONUS POINTS\nWorking knowledge of revenue recognition (ASC 606) and how deal structure flows through bookings, ARR, and revenue\n\nExperience at companies selling developer tools, APIs, or data infrastructure to engineering-led buyers.\n\nExperience supporting product-led growth (self-serve, usage-based) and enterprise sales inside a single commercial architecture.\n\nFamiliarity with usage-based billing infrastructure (Stripe, Metronome, Orb, Zuora) and the CRM-to-billing data model it requires.\n\nHands-on with contract lifecycle tooling (Ironclad, DocuSign) and using AI to accelerate first-pass contract and deal review.\n\nWHY EXA\nCategory-defining company: Exa is the infrastructure layer for how AI accesses the world’s information - a market that barely existed two years ago and is now mission-critical.\n\nElite backing: a $250M Series C led by a16z, with Benchmark, Lightspeed, and YC doubling down, bringing Exa’s valuation to $2.2 billion.\n\nGreenfield build: There is no legacy desk to inherit and no committee to negotiate with. You define the pricing playbook, the approval architecture, and the bookings discipline that will govern the next phase of growth.\n\nThe timing matters: Exa is at the inflection point where foundational GTM decisions compound into durable advantage. The work you do in the next twelve months will shape the next five years.\n\nExa is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, creed, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, disability, age, veteran status, marital status, pregnancy or related conditions, criminal histories consistent with applicable law, or any other basis protected by applicable law.","description_format":"text","description_chars":6578,"description_truncated":false,"requirements":{"experience_years_min":null,"management_years_min":null,"team_size_min":null,"manages_managers":false,"education":null,"security_clearance":false,"languages":[]},"benefits":[],"hiring_locations":[],"hiring_excludes":[],"relocation_offered":false,"industries":["Search Engines","Vector Search & RAG","AI Search","Web Scraping & Proxy Networks"],"lifecycle":[{"event":"open","at":"2026-09-25T15:48:23Z"}],"liveness":{"score":21,"band":"cold","label":"Long shot","p_open":1,"p_active":0.376,"p_room":0.55,"age_days":45,"expected_fill_days":40,"reasons":["conf:2","stale_co","velocity","win:tail"],"computed_at":"2026-09-28T05:45:00Z"},"pay":{"stated_usd_annual":275000,"is_top_pay":true},"html_url":"https://alion.io/job/exa-deal-desk-manager","json_url":"https://alion.io/job/exa-deal-desk-manager.json","meta":{"generated_at":"2026-09-29T00:18:40Z","cache_seconds":300,"methodology":"https://alion.io/methodology","terms":"https://alion.io/terms","contact":"https://alion.io/contact","api":"https://alion.io/developers","usage":{"tier":"crawler","counted_by":"address","units_charged":1,"used_today":248,"day_limit":5000,"remaining_today":4752,"minute_limit":60,"resets_at":"2026-09-30T00:00:00Z"}}}