Sales Manager

Who you are

• 10+ years in media or advertising sales, with meaningful time selling premium, direct-sold sponsorships at a publisher, platform, or media company
• A track record of closing seven-figure deals with brands and holding company agencies, and relationships you can activate from day one
• Comfort operating without a playbook: you've sold something new to market before, or built a sales function inside an early-stage business
• Fluency in how brands buy creator and content-led media, including measurement expectations, agency dynamics, and where budgets are moving
• Strong instincts for pricing and packaging, and the discipline to protect them under pressure to close
• Exceptional communication skills; you can pitch a CMO, coach a team member, and help build products that land in market
• Genuine belief in independent publishing and what Substack is building; bonus if you're a Substack reader or writer yourself

What the job involves

• The Brand Partnerships team at Substack is building our sponsorships business from the ground up. The Sales Manager will help lead that revenue engine. Brands want to reach the audiences that trust Substack publishers, and your job is to turn that demand into a repeatable sales motion, from the first agency meeting through signed insertion orders and renewals. This is a founding role on a small team, so the playbook is yours to write
• Build sponsorships revenue number, and the pipeline, forecast, and pacing behind it
• Sell directly to senior brand and agency decision-makers, leading the largest and most strategic deals from prospecting through close
• Contribute to building the sales infrastructure a new business needs: territory and account coverage, pricing and packaging discipline, CRM hygiene, and a deal process that holds up as volume grows
• Translate Substack's story into a pitch that lands with CMOs and media planners, working with creative strategy to shape proposals that feel native to the platform
• Work closely with publishers and their teams to make sure sold campaigns are ones they actually want to run
• Bring market signal back into the company, shaping product, pricing, and positioning based on what you hear in rooms with buyers
• Represent Substack at industry events and in key agency relationships, opening doors for the whole team

Benefits

• Remote work support - All employees receive a generous allowance to customize their home offices
• Comprehensive health care - Substack covers 100% of premiums for employees and their dependents, and fully funds HRA plans
• Parental leave - We want employees to be fully present for the new members of their family, so we offer generous parental leave
• Flexible vacation and paid time off - You’re the best person to decide when you need a day—or a week—off to travel or decompress. Our flexible vacation policy puts you in control
• Company holidays and Winter shutdown - In addition to flexible time off, we honor 12 paid holidays annually on average. And we close the office between Christmas Eve and New Year's day to recharge each year
• Phone & internet stipends - Many of our employees work from home or on the go. So we offer full time employees a monthly stipend to cover for phone and internet costs