Manager, Commercial Sales - West

Manager, Commercial Sales - West

Location:

US West (remote), strong interest for San Francisco

The Role

Our commercial segment is one of the more technically demanding sales environments in the industry. Our buyers are data engineers, platform architects, and technical founders — and the AEs who succeed here do so because they can meet those buyers as peers, not vendors. Building and leading that team requires someone who has done it themselves and knows what great looks like.

As Manager of Commercial Sales at ClickHouse, you'll own the performance, development, and culture of our Commercial AE team. You'll be expected to live in the details — reviewing pipelines, sitting on calls, pressure-testing deal strategy, and knowing every meaningful opportunity in the book. The best managers in this role won't be directing from a distance; they'll be the person their reps turn to when a deal gets complicated. This is not a role for someone who wants to manage from a dashboard.

It's a role for someone who wants to build something.

You'll inherit a team that has real momentum, as our Commercial segment represents a significant % of our overall business.

What You Will Be Doing

• Lead, coach, and develop a team of Commercial Account Executives selling into the sub-250 employee segment — helping them close faster, think more technically, and operate with greater autonomy over time.
• Own the Commercial segment number. You're accountable for team attainment, pipeline health, and forecast accuracy — and you'll be expected to have a clear point of view on both at any given moment.
• Spend time in deals. Review deals, join customer conversations when it matters, and help your reps navigate the technical and commercial complexity that defines this segment.
• Hire exceptional people. The Commercial AE profile is rare: technically credible, commercially hungry, and able to operate without hand-holding. You know how to find and close that person.
• Build the playbook. Document what's working, codify best practices, and create repeatable frameworks for technical discovery, objection handling, and deal progression that the team can scale.
• Partner cross-functionally with Solutions Engineering, Product, and Marketing to ensure the Commercial team has the support, enablement, and feedback loops they need to win.
• Identify patterns across the pipeline — where deals stall, where we lose, and where we consistently win — and use those insights to improve team performance and inform product and GTM decisions.
• Contribute to the broader Commercial strategy, including segmentation, coverage model, and how we evolve the motion as the team scales.

What You Bring

• A track record of success as a quota-carrying AE in a technical sales environment — you've sold data infrastructure, developer tooling, or a similarly technical product to engineering buyers and you know what that motion actually requires.
• Experience leading or mentoring other sellers, whether in a formal management role or as a senior IC who took ownership of team development. You know how to coach, not just direct.
• Technical credibility. You don't need to be an engineer, but you need to earn respect in rooms full of them. You understand the modern data stack, can hold a conversation about architecture, and know enough to identify when a deal is stalling for technical reasons vs. commercial ones.
• Strong commercial instincts. You can read a pipeline, spot sandbagging, identify risk early, and have an honest forecast conversation with leadership without needing a week to prepare.
• A builder mentality. The playbook is still being written. You're comfortable operating in that environment and energized by the opportunity to shape it rather than frustrated by the ambiguity.
• Genuine investment in people development. Your reps' growth is your growth. You give direct feedback, create space for people to fail safely, and take accountability for the development of everyone on your team.
• Why This Role Is Different
• The Commercial segment at ClickHouse is technically differentiated, growing fast, and still finding its ceiling. The person who leads it will have a direct hand in shaping how one of the most important data infrastructure companies in the industry goes to market — and will build a team that reflects their own standard of excellence.