Director of Sales – Lead DACH Team at Chainguard in Columbus
Career & Market Insight
Career Trajectory: This is a high-visibility Director-level role reporting directly to the AVP of Sales at a well-funded, hypergrowth cybersecurity startup. Managing a team of 5–7 AEs at a Series-stage company backed by Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, and IVP positions you for VP of Sales roles within 2–4 years, especially given the DACH regional ownership and Fortune 500 account strategy responsibilities.
Compensation Context: No salary is listed, but Director of Sales roles in DACH for US-backed security SaaS companies typically range €150,000–€220,000 OTE (base + commission), with equity on top. Chainguard's 10-year option exercise window is an unusually strong equity term — most startups offer 90 days post-departure, making this a meaningful differentiator.
Skills You'll Build:
- Enterprise security sales leadership in a fast-moving open source supply chain security market
- CSP marketplace (AWS, GCP, Azure) deal structuring — a highly transferable and in-demand skill
- Cross-functional GTM alignment across BDR, SE, CS, and marketing
- Hypergrowth sales team scaling and AE enablement
Green Flags: Tier-1 investors, marquee customer logos (OpenAI, Snowflake, Anduril), and a product in a category — software supply chain security — that is growing rapidly due to regulatory pressure (NIS2, SBOM mandates). Watch for: No salary transparency and a requirement to travel as needed could signal heavy travel expectations. Confirm OTE structure and quota attainment rates before accepting.
Chainguard is the trusted source for open source. By delivering hardened, secure, and production-ready builds of all the open source software engineers and AI agents rely on, Chainguard helps organizations build faster, stay compliant, and eliminate risk.
Our customers include Fortune 500 enterprises and global industry leaders, including Anduril, Canva, Fortinet, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, OpenAI, Snap Inc., and Snowflake.
Chainguard is venture-backed by leading investors, including Amplify, IVP, Kleiner Perkins, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mantis VC, Redpoint Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Spark Capital.
We are looking for a Director of Sales to join our rapidly growing team and manage a team of 5–7 Account Executives.
What you'll do:
- Report directly to the AVP of Sales and manage a team of 5–7 Account Executives
- Drive, manage, and execute the business and revenue of the sales team
- Build a collaborative environment where your team can thrive, learn, and grow
- Build and improve processes for AE onboarding and ramping
- Prepare forecasts, territory/industry management, and growth plans
- Establish and report on metrics to measure team performance
- Drive alignment with supporting teams across marketing, customer success, BDR, sales engineering, and customer engineering
- Set the strategy for Chainguard's largest accounts
What we're looking for:
- 6+ years of experience selling a technical product; open source, DevOps, or security experience preferred
- 3+ years of experience successfully managing high-performing software sales teams
- Experience working with CSP marketplaces
- Proven track record of meeting and exceeding performance objectives (revenue targets, pipeline targets, etc.)
- Experience selling to Fortune 500 companies and a willingness to roll up your sleeves
- Existing enterprise customer relationships in DACH
- Experience using CRM and marketing automation systems
- Ability to exercise effective judgment, sensitivity, and creativity in response to changing needs and situations; ability to handle a fast-paced environment and challenging workload
- Strong relationship-building and negotiation skills
- Experience going through a growth or hyper-growth stage
- Ability to travel as needed
About Us
We live and breathe our company values:
- We are customer obsessed — We focus on delivering solutions to our customers that create value and make their lives better.
- We have a bias for intentional action — We prioritize, plan, try things, and fail fast.
- We don't take ourselves too seriously (but we do serious work) — We are solving an important problem which takes focus, but we also like to enjoy the journey.
- We trust each other and assume good intentions — We're transparent with decisions to empower team members to make well-informed decisions.
A few of the benefits we offer:
- Flexible & Remote-First Culture: Work remotely with team meetup opportunities, bi-annual destination summits, and a monthly stipend for coworking spaces, phone, and internet costs.
- Our Approach to Equity: Receive stock options upon hire and promotion. Plus, you can participate in secondary offerings and have 10 years to exercise your options (yes, you read that correctly: 10 years!).
- 100% Covered Health Insurance: We cover 100% of your health, vision, and dental insurance premiums for you and your dependents. Nothing comes out of your paycheck.
- ∞ Flexible Time Off: Take the time you need — to do our best work, we need to recharge and reset.
- 18 Weeks Paid Parental Leave: We offer 18 weeks for birthing parents and 12 weeks for non-birthing parents, with the option to use it all at once or throughout your child's first year.
If your experience is close but doesn't fulfill all requirements, please apply. We're building the best team in technology and are focused on hiring "Chainguardians" with unique backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences.
Chainguard is an equal opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, reproductive health decisions, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, genetic information, political views or activity, or other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law.
By submitting your application, you acknowledge that Chainguard will process your personal data in accordance with Chainguard's Global Candidate Privacy Notice.
©2026 Chainguard. All Rights Reserved.
Frequently Asked Questions
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