Keystone is the intelligent curriculum platform that connects how institutions build, maintain, and evolve curriculum, so learning endures.
Curriculum is the connective tissue of higher education, and at most institutions it lives in static documents, siloed systems, and the heads of faculty. WorldQuant Learning is changing that. With Keystone, universities can design programs, keep them aligned to a fast-moving world, and continuously improve them with intelligence built into the platform itself. The result is curriculum that is coherent, current, and durable, and learning that endures well beyond any single course.
We are at an inflection point: a differentiated product, early customer traction, and a clear runway to grow Keystone into a category-defining platform. This is a ground-floor opportunity to help shape how we sell, who we sell to, and how we win.
We are hiring our first Sales Manager (Player/Coach) to partner directly with the COO in building Keystone's go-to-market engine. You will personally carry a quota and close deals with customers, while also laying the foundation - playbooks, processes, hiring bar - for the team that will scale behind you.
This is not a manager-from-the-sidelines role, and it is not a pure individual-contributor seat. We are looking for a mid-career operator who is comfortable building from the ground up, and who has the creativity, patience and stamina to do it well in higher education and learning organizations, where decisions are deliberate and cycles are long. You will carry a bag, sit in front of c-suite leaders and mentor the next hires we bring in.
You will report directly to the COO and have meaningful influence over our segmentation, pricing, ICP, and partner strategy.
- Own and close a personal book of business. Carry an individual quota against accounts in the target ICP. Run full-cycle deals from prospecting through close, including multi-stakeholder evaluations involving executives, decision makers, key influencers, legal, and procurement.
- Build the pipeline. Develop a repeatable outbound motion into target institutions. Partner with marketing on inbound, events, and conference strategy. Open new logos and expand within existing partners.
- Codify the playbook. Translate what works into reusable assets - discovery frameworks, objection handling, deal qualification, proposal templates, mutual close plans - so the next hires ramp faster than you did.
- Coach and (eventually) hire. Mentor early sales hires on technique, pipeline hygiene, and deal strategy. Help to interview, hire, and onboard the team that will scale behind you.
- Partner across the company. Bring the voice of the market back into product and customer success. Influence pricing, positioning, and roadmap decisions based on what you hear in the market.
- Forecast with rigor. Own clean pipeline data, accurate forecasts, and the operating cadence that lets leadership see around corners.
- Use AI as a force multiplier. Bring AI into prospecting, account research, call preparation, deal review, and forecasting so the team punches above its weight. Help us identify where AI can meaningfully change how we sell - and where it can't.
- 5–10 years in B2B SAAS sales, with a meaningful track record of closing complex, consultative deals with long sales cycles and multiple stakeholders.
- Higher-education, Corporate Learning or EdTech sales experience strongly preferred. You have sold to universities, L&D departments, or to similarly complex institutional buyers (governments, hospital systems, large nonprofits) where committee-based decisions and procurement are the norm.
- Demonstrated player/coach experience. You have personally carried and exceeded quota, and you have mentored, coached, or formally managed other reps. You can point to people whose careers you accelerated.
- Builder's mindset, paired with patience. You have built pipeline from a cold start and are comfortable when the CRM is half-built, the deck is being rewritten, and the ICP is still sharpening. Just as importantly, you understand that higher-education and corporate L&D buying is deliberate and consultative, and you can pace yourself - and the team - for cycles measured in quarters, not weeks.
- Fluency with AI and modern sales tooling. You actively use AI to do your job better - research, sequencing, call prep, summarization, deal review, pipeline analytics - and you have a point of view on what works and what doesn't. You are excited to help bake AI into how this team operates from day one.
- Strategic and operational. You can think in segments, motions, and unit economics, and you are equally happy doing the unglamorous work of cleaning a pipeline report.
- Excellent communicator. Crisp in writing, credible in front of senior academic and administrative leaders, and the c-suite; persuasive without being pushy.
- Mission alignment. You care about education and about expanding access to opportunity. Keystone is not a product you can sell well without believing in it.
- Willing to travel roughly 20–30% for prospect visits, conferences, and key meetings.
- Direct experience selling to deans, provosts, department chairs, central academic affairs / curriculum offices or corporate L&D leaders.
- Familiarity with curriculum management, learning design, accreditation workflows, OPM, or other academic technology categories.
- Experience standing up a sales tech stack (CRM, sequencing, enrichment, forecasting) from a clean slate.
- A network in higher education that you can credibly activate.
WorldQuant Learning is a total compensation organization where you will be eligible for a base salary, performance bonus, and benefits. To provide greater transparency to candidates, we share base pay ranges for all US-based job postings regardless of state. We set standard base pay ranges for all roles based on job function and level, benchmarked against similar stage organizations. When finalizing an offer, we will take into consideration an individual’s experience level and the qualifications they bring to the role to formulate a competitive total compensation package.
At WorldQuant Learning, we are committed to providing candidates with all necessary information in compliance with pay transparency laws. If you believe any required details are missing from this job posting, please notify us at careers@wqlearning.com, and we will address your concerns promptly.
