Head of Sales, Lambda Cloud (San Francisco)
Lambda, The Superintelligence Cloud, is a leader in AI cloud infrastructure serving tens of thousands of customers. Our customers range from AI researchers to enterprises and hyperscalers. Lambda's mission is to make compute as ubiquitous as electricity and give everyone the power of superintelligence. One person, one GPU. If you'd like to build the world's best AI cloud, join us. *Note: This position requires presence in our San Francisco/San Jose office location 4 days per week; Lambda’s designated work from home day is currently Tuesday. Overview Lambda is building the cloud infrastructure that powers the frontier of AI. As AI workloads grow in scale and complexity, enterprises, research labs, and hyperscalers need a cloud provider that can deliver GPU capacity with reliability, flexibility, and speed. Lambda Cloud is that provider — and we're looking for a Head of Sales to lead the commercial engine that brings it to market. This is a senior leadership role reporting directly to the GM of Lambda Cloud. You will own the sales motion end-to-end: building and managing a high-performing sales team, designing the commercial frameworks that make deals possible, and being the connective tissue between customer demand and Lambda's product and capacity roadmap. You'll be equally comfortable negotiating a nine-figure enterprise commitment and coaching a junior AE through their first pipeline review. This is not a role for someone who wants to manage from a distance. Lambda Cloud is in a pivotal growth phase, and the Head of Sales will be a key voice in how we scale — not just in revenue, but in how we operate, how we prioritize, and how we show up for customers. What You’ll Do Team Leadership & Structure Recruit, develop, and retain a team of enterprise account executives and sales support functions, setting a high bar for rigor, customer focus, and commercial creativity Define and evolve pod/vertical structure for sales coverage — including assignment of sellers to segments across enterprises, AI-native startups, and developers — ensuring each segment has a clearly owned GTM motion Establish clear performance expectations, coaching cadences, and career development frameworks that help individual sellers grow and succeed Commercial Strategy & Deal Execution Design and maintain scalable, flexible commercial terms that can accommodate a wide range of deal structures — from short-term on-demand credits to long-duration reserved capacity commitments Partner with finance and legal to build a deal desk function capable of turning around complex enterprise quotes quickly without sacrificing margin discipline Advise leadership on incentive compensation structure for the sales team, balancing bookings, revenue, and strategic account objectives Own and close a portfolio of strategic accounts personally where executive presence and relationships are a differentiator Pipeline Management & Forecasting Drive a rigorous weekly and monthly pipeline review cadence, including systematic evaluation of pipeline degradation — identifying deals at risk, understanding root causes, and taking corrective action Maintain accurate, real-time forecasting discipline across the team, ensuring Lambda leadership has reliable signal on near-term and long-term revenue trajectory Develop early warning indicators and pipeline health metrics that help the team get ahead of slippage before it becomes a miss Work with finance and accounting teams to drive MBR/QBR Capacity Allocation & Revenue Operations Work closely with infrastructure and capacity planning teams to translate customer demand signals into GPU capacity allocation decisions, helping Lambda deploy capital where it will generate the highest commercial return Manage the assignment and prioritization of salable GPU capacity across customer segments and deal types, balancing short-term revenue with strategic account development Collaborate with the GM and product teams to surface customer demand patterns that should inform capacity investment and site expansion decisions Customer Feedback & Product Influence Systematically gather and synthesize customer feedback on GPU availability, pricing, product features, and service quality, and channel that input into product management with the specificity needed to drive action Serve as the commercial voice of the customer in internal roadmap and prioritization discussions, advocating for features and capabilities that will open new revenue opportunities or protect existing ones Build strong relationships with technical buyers and economic decision-makers at key accounts, developing a deep understanding of their infrastructure roadmaps and where Lambda can grow share of wallet GTM & Partnerships Coordinate with marketing on demand generation, event strategy, and account-based programs that fill the top of the funnel for enterprise segments Collaborate with commercial/technical partnership team to Identify and develop channel and reseller relationships — including cloud marketplace channels (e.g. GCP Marketplace, AWS Marketplace) — that extend Lambda's commercial reach Work with business development on strategic partnership opportunities that have commercial implications for Lambda Cloud revenue Partner with marketing to identify and lock-in customer references spanning case studies, logo placements, podcasts, and other critical reusable collateral You have 12 years of B2B enterprise sales experience, with at least 4 years in a sales leadership role managing quota-carrying teams Deep domain experience in cloud infrastructure, GPU compute, or AI/ML infrastructure — you understand what you're selling and can credibly engage with both technical and business buyers Demonstrated track record of building and scaling enterprise sales teams from an early stage, including designing territory models, compensation structures, and sales processes Experience owning and closing large, complex deals ($10M TCV) with long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and custom commercial terms Strong command of pipeline management and forecasting methodology — you run disciplined reviews, understand degradation signals, and hold your team accountable to forecast accuracy Experience working cross-functionally with product, finance, and operations in a fast-moving environment where sales and capacity planning are tightly coupled Excellent communication and executive presence — able to represent Lambda externally at the C-suite level and internally as a peer to engineering and product leadership Demonstrated ability to build feedback loops between sales and product, translating customer signal into actionable input rather than anecdote Exposure to cloud marketplace channels (GCP, AWS, Azure Marketplace) as a distribution mechanism Experience in a player‑coach sales model where you personally own strategic accounts while managing a team Nice to Have Experience selling GPU cloud or HPC capacity specifically, with familiarity in how frontier AI labs and hyperscalers evaluate and procure compute Prior exposure to neocloud or infrastructure startup environments where product gaps are real and commercial creativity is required to compete against larger, more established players Familiarity with Nvidia ecosystem, GPU cluster economics, and how customers think about CapEx vs. opex tradeoffs for AI infrastructure Experience structuring and selling reserved capacity or long-duration committed use agreements Existing relationships with infrastructure decision-makers at large enterprises with AI programs Background working alongside or within a deal desk function, with hands-on experience structuring non-standard commercial terms Salary Range Information The annual salary range for this position has been set based on market data and other factors. However, a salary higher or lower than this range may be appropriate for a candidate whose qualifications differ meaningfully from those listed in the job description. About Lambda Founded in 2012, with 500 employees, and growing fast Our investors notably include TWG Global, US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT), Andra Capital, SGW, Andrej Karpathy, ARK Invest, Fincadia Advisors, G Squared, In-Q-Tel (IQT), KHK & Partners, NVIDIA, Pegatron, Supermicro, Wistron, Wiwynn, Gradient Ventures, Mercato Partners, SVB, 1517, and Crescent Cove We have research papers accepted at top machine learning and graphics conferences, including NeurIPS, ICCV, SIGGRAPH, and TOG Our values are publicly available: https://lambda.ai/careers We offer generous cash & equity compensation Health, dental, and vision coverage for you and your dependents Wellness and commuter stipends for select roles 401k Plan with 2% company match (USA employees) Flexible paid time off plan that we all actually use Equal Opportunity Employer Lambda is an Equal Opportunity employer. Applicants are considered without regard to race, color, religion, creed, national origin, age, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation and identity, genetic information, veteran status, citizenship or any other factors prohibited by local, state, or federal law. J-18808-Ljbffr
