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Kernel
BDR Manager
London Hybrid 5-10 yrs exp Software Development 52 employees£80k – £120k / year
BDR ManagementOutbound Sales StrategyPipeline GenerationSales CoachingICP Definition
Requirements
Candidates need 4+ years of experience in business development or outbound sales, including experience managing or scaling a BDR team. Strong instincts for messaging and the ability to operate in an ambiguous, fast-paced startup environment are essential.
Job Description
About Kernel
Agents are becoming part of how companies sell, buy and operate. But before an agent can close a deal, qualify an account, route a lead or assess risk, it needs to answer a basic question: which company is this?
Today, that answer is messy. Business identity lives across CRMs, ERPs and third-party datasets full of duplicates, missing parent companies, stale addresses and half-correct enrichment. Humans have worked around that mess for years. Agents cannot. They need a shared identity layer they can trust.
Kernel is building that layer: the business registry for agents. We create a permanent KERN ID for every business, plus the context an agent needs to act on it.
Ops, data and revenue teams at Gong, Legora, Mistral, Canva and Checkout already use Kernel on their own systems. Agents are next, and there will be far more of them.
We have raised $14M from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, Slack and others, and we are growing 5x YoY.
The Role
Set the strategy
We will do our best to offer you the ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.
We can sponsor visas or offer relocation for exceptional candidates.
Interview Process
Stage 1 – Intro call with Talent Lead, De-Vene (40min).
Stage 2 – Hiring Manager screen with Head of Sales, Dave (30min).
Stage 3 – Case study and time on site with Dave & team (1hour).
Final Stage – Founders interview with CEO, Anders (45min).
If there is mutual fit, we move to references and offer.
Agents are becoming part of how companies sell, buy and operate. But before an agent can close a deal, qualify an account, route a lead or assess risk, it needs to answer a basic question: which company is this?
Today, that answer is messy. Business identity lives across CRMs, ERPs and third-party datasets full of duplicates, missing parent companies, stale addresses and half-correct enrichment. Humans have worked around that mess for years. Agents cannot. They need a shared identity layer they can trust.
Kernel is building that layer: the business registry for agents. We create a permanent KERN ID for every business, plus the context an agent needs to act on it.
Ops, data and revenue teams at Gong, Legora, Mistral, Canva and Checkout already use Kernel on their own systems. Agents are next, and there will be far more of them.
We have raised $14M from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, Slack and others, and we are growing 5x YoY.
The Role
- We have strong product market fit. In 2025 we grew ~5x with world class net dollar retention, mostly from founder-led sales, and now have AEs hitting quota with an emerging playbook.
- We're looking for a BDR Manager to accelerate our outbound engine as we scale in 2026. You'll own a team of ~12 BDRs and be responsible for the pipeline that fuels our growth.
- You will report to Dave Bentham (Head of Sales) and work closely with our AEs, marketing, and leadership team to make sure the top of funnel is consistently feeding high-quality pipeline.
Set the strategy
- Work with Dave and the rest of leadership to define ICP, targeting, and outbound messaging.
- Translate company targets into clear, measurable BDR goals and ensure pipeline expectations are distributed strategically across the team.
- Continuously iterate on outbound plays, channels, and sequences to improve conversion at every stage.
- Develop the BDR team to be a talent pool for the rest of the organisation through a culture of constant learning
- Manage and develop a team of ~12 BDRs across inbound and outbound.
- Work alongside our recruiters to grow the team as we scale.
- Be accountable for team performance. Coach underperformers, promote top performers, and set a high bar across the board.
- Our BDR team is the talent engine for the entire GTM team. Nurturing the best people and helping them be ready for the next role is crucial.
- Define qualification criteria and handoff processes that set AEs up to close.
- Build repeatable outbound plays that convert, and partner with marketing where needed.
- Establish pipeline generation rigor: activity metrics, and predictable output.
- Run weekly team reviews, call coaching sessions, and continuous improvement loops.
- 4+ years in business development and/or outbound sales, with at least some time managing a BDR or SDR team.
- Experience scaling a BDR team (e.g. growing from a handful of reps to 10+) or managing a team of that size.
- Strong instincts for messaging, targeting, and what makes outbound actually work.
- Comfort operating in ambiguity: you can build process, playbooks, and territory strategy.
- Bonus: the deeper your knowledge of RevOps, data, and GTM tools the better.
- Need lots of structure or polished specs.
- You like spending weeks agonizing on a single initiative, or don’t want to rapidly iterate and run experiments.
- Require detailed instructions.
- Prefer remote or hybrid work (requires 4+ days in London office) and/or can’t travel to clients (US+Europe)
- Don’t enjoy the pace of an early-stage startup.
- Want to carry your own deals instead of building and coaching a team.
We will do our best to offer you the ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.
- 💰 Salary: £80-120k OTE + equity
- 🗓️ 24 days holiday per year + bank holidays
- 🥕 £450 Monthly Office Dinner Allowance
- ✈️ 2 weeks work-from-anywhere
- 🍼 Generous parental leave policy
- 💼 Pension plan
- 💻 Top-spec equipment and central London office
- 🎉 Team events and dinners
- 🚀 Work directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI
- 🏆 High-autonomy, high-trust environment with a small team shipping at pace
We can sponsor visas or offer relocation for exceptional candidates.
Interview Process
Stage 1 – Intro call with Talent Lead, De-Vene (40min).
Stage 2 – Hiring Manager screen with Head of Sales, Dave (30min).
Stage 3 – Case study and time on site with Dave & team (1hour).
Final Stage – Founders interview with CEO, Anders (45min).
If there is mutual fit, we move to references and offer.
Skills
BDR ManagementOutbound Sales StrategyPipeline GenerationSales CoachingICP DefinitionSales Playbook DevelopmentLead QualificationRevenue OperationsGTM StrategyTeam ScalingPerformance ManagementOutbound Messaging
About Kernel
Most CRMs are full of duplicates, messy hierarchies, and inaccurate firmographics, leaving RevOps teams fighting data hygiene issues instead of driving revenue. Kernel tackles data inaccuracy at the source with an agentic entity database. It links accounts to real-world organizations, and its agents crawl and reason over CRM context and public sources to provide accurate data tailored to how your company sells. Kernel’s data management platform performs expert-level data corrections safely at scale, applying the same decisions a RevOps professional would make for each account across your entire CRM. Unlike traditional data providers, Kernel continuously maintains and updates data so it aligns with your go-to-market strategy, giving your team an accurate foundation to plan territories, identify whitespace, and increase rep productivity. Teams at Gong, Navan, and Mistral AI trust Kernel to fix their foundational account data.