Regional BDR Team Manager

Canonical publishes Ubuntu and has been remote-first since 2004, with 1,200+ colleagues across 75+ countries and very few office-based roles.

The role

Canonical is expanding its sales and field engineering teams globally, and is hiring SDR Team Managers to run new inbound and outbound teams.

Your primary objective is managing and mentoring a team of 2 to 10 SDRs and BDRs, and maintaining a multi-million dollar pipeline. This is direct team management, which distinguishes it from the Regional SDR Director role that leads managers rather than reps.

Why this role is different: it is a sales academy

Canonical's SDRs are typically outstanding STEM graduates entering the software industry and beginning their sales careers. The organisation is deliberately structured as a training ground.

As the listing puts it, the goal is not only managing inbound leads for a global tech company but developing sales professionals with high integrity, high empathy and a rigorous work ethic. Canonical explicitly wants managers who take a real interest in skills development and culture-building.

They also note the team has trained dozens of tech sales professionals now working at Canonical and across the wider industry, and link to a video featuring graduates of the programme.

Who enjoys this role

Canonical is unusually direct about fit. You will enjoy this position if you are organised, persistent, analytical and hard-working, and if you care that smart, ambitious people develop the skills to represent you and the company well over the course of their careers — both while on your team and as they move on to more senior sales and alliances roles.

They also want someone determined to grow their own skills, who enjoys learning about new technology, and who is open to experimenting with new outbound approaches as the market shifts.

What they value

• Excellent academic results at school and university
• Bachelor's or equivalent degree in Business or STEM
• Knowledge of and passion for business development, sales and technology
• A track record of delivering exceptional outbound sales development results
• Commitment to continuous learning and improvement: curious, flexible, scientific
• Creative problem solving and cross-team collaboration
• Leadership experience in some form
• Ability to use data to drive team activity and continuous improvement

Worth noting how short that list is compared with most Canonical postings. There is no demand for years of management experience, which makes this a plausible step up for a strong senior SDR or BDR ready to lead a team for the first time.

Benefits

• Distributed work with twice-yearly in-person team sprints
• USD 2,000 personal learning and development budget per year
• Annual compensation review, plus performance-driven annual bonus or commission
• Recognition rewards, annual holiday leave, maternity and paternity leave
• Employee Assistance Programme
• Priority Pass and travel upgrades for long-haul company events

No salary figures are published on this listing.

Location

The posting lists four options: Home Based Americas, Home Based APAC, Home based EMEA, and Home based Worldwide. Filed as Worldwide, the broadest of the four.

Before applying

AI use disqualifies your application. You must confirm you used only your own words.

Expect Canonical's standard academic screening: high-school mathematics and native-language performance bands justified against national scoring systems, plus your degree result. Candidates without a degree may enter "no degree."

Three written answers are required:

• Your approach to coaching, training and development
• The most complex product you have ever represented to the market
• What advice you would give an SDR moving from an inbound to an outbound role

These are craft questions rather than box-ticking, and the third in particular rewards someone who has actually made that transition.