Sales operations has evolved from a back-office support function into a strategic role that directly impacts revenue performance. The best sales ops managers don’t just run reports and manage CRM hygiene. They build the systems, processes, and infrastructure that make your entire sales organization more effective.

For software companies, where data is abundant and sales processes can be complex, strong sales operations is a competitive advantage. The right hire can improve forecasting accuracy, increase rep productivity, and surface insights that drive better decisions across the organization.

According to Boston Consulting Group, B2B companies investing in revenue operations have experienced 10-20% increases in sales productivity. That’s meaningful lift from an operational investment, and it underscores why getting this hire right matters.

Here’s how to find and hire sales operations managers who can actually move the needle.

What Sales Operations Managers Actually Do

Before hiring, understand the scope of the role. Sales ops managers typically own several key areas:

Process design and optimization. Building and refining the sales process, from lead routing to opportunity stages to handoffs between teams. Strong sales ops makes the sales motion more efficient and repeatable.

CRM and technology management. Owning the sales tech stack, primarily the CRM but often including sales engagement tools, forecasting platforms, and analytics systems. This includes configuration, data quality, integrations, and user adoption.

Reporting and analytics. Creating dashboards, reports, and analyses that help sales leadership understand performance, identify trends, and make informed decisions.

Forecasting. Building and managing the forecasting process, including methodology, cadence, and accuracy tracking. Good forecasting is essential for planning and resource allocation.

Territory and quota planning. Designing territory structures, setting quotas, and ensuring workload is distributed effectively across the sales team.

Compensation administration. Managing commission structures, calculating payouts, and handling disputes or exceptions. This requires both precision and fairness.

Sales enablement support. Often partnering with or owning sales enablement functions like onboarding, training content, and playbook development.

Cross-functional coordination. Working with marketing, finance, customer success, and product teams to ensure alignment and smooth handoffs across the customer lifecycle.

The role requires someone who can think strategically about sales effectiveness while also executing tactically on day-to-day operations.

What to Look for in Sales Ops Candidates

Sales operations requires a specific blend of skills. Here’s what matters most:

Analytical capability. Sales ops lives in data. Look for candidates who can manipulate data, build models, identify patterns, and translate analysis into actionable recommendations.

Systems thinking. The best sales ops people understand how different parts of the sales organization connect. They see downstream impacts and design processes that work across the whole system.

Technical proficiency. They need to be comfortable with CRM administration, reporting tools, and the broader sales tech stack. While they don’t need to be engineers, they should be able to configure systems and troubleshoot issues.

Process orientation. Strong sales ops managers are naturally drawn to creating structure, documenting processes, and building repeatable systems.

Communication skills. They need to translate data into insights that sales leaders can act on, and explain process changes to reps who need to adopt them.

Business acumen. Understanding the software sales model, including metrics like ARR, pipeline coverage, conversion rates, and sales cycles, is essential for making meaningful contributions.

Stakeholder management. Sales ops works across multiple teams and serves multiple masters. They need to balance competing priorities and maintain credibility with diverse stakeholders.

Attention to detail. From commission calculations to forecast accuracy, small errors in sales ops create big problems. Precision matters.

Interview Tactics That Reveal True Capability

Standard interviews often fail to surface what you need to know about sales ops candidates. Try these approaches:

Present a data problem. Give candidates a realistic dataset and ask them to identify insights, trends, or problems. Watch how they approach the analysis, what questions they ask, and how they present their findings.

Test CRM knowledge. Ask them to walk you through how they’ve configured or optimized a CRM in previous roles. What fields did they add? What automations did they build? How did they handle data quality issues? Specificity reveals real experience.

Explore their forecasting methodology. Have them describe their approach to forecasting. What inputs do they use? How do they weight different factors? How do they handle sandbaggers or overly optimistic reps? Strong candidates have clear methods.

Discuss a process improvement. Ask them to describe a sales process they redesigned. What was broken? How did they diagnose the problem? What did they change? How did they measure impact? Look for structured problem-solving.

Probe their stakeholder management. Sales ops often faces conflicting demands from sales leadership, individual reps, and other departments. Ask how they’ve handled situations where stakeholders disagreed about priorities or approach.

Test their communication. Have them explain a complex analysis or recommendation to you as if you were a sales leader without a data background. The ability to simplify without dumbing down is essential.

Red Flags to Watch For

Several warning signs suggest a candidate may struggle in sales ops:

• All analysis, no action. If they talk only about building reports and dashboards without discussing how insights drove decisions or changes, they may be more analyst than operator.
• Tech-focused without business context. Candidates who geek out on CRM configuration but can’t connect it to sales outcomes may struggle to prioritize what matters.
• Rigid process thinking. Sales ops needs to balance structure with flexibility. Candidates who seem inflexible or unable to adapt processes to changing needs may create friction.
• Poor communication examples. If they struggle to explain their past work clearly, they’ll struggle to communicate with sales teams and leadership.
• No experience with forecasting. Forecasting is a core sales ops responsibility. Candidates without forecasting experience will have a significant learning curve.
• Limited cross-functional exposure. Sales ops that only worked within the sales silo may struggle with the coordination the role requires.

Compensation Considerations

Sales ops compensation is typically all or mostly base salary, unlike sales roles with significant variable pay. A few principles:

Benchmark by function and level. Sales ops manager compensation varies significantly by company stage, team size, and scope of responsibility. Use current market data for your specific situation.

Consider the hybrid factor. Some companies add small bonuses tied to team performance or company metrics. This can create alignment without the complexity of full variable compensation.

Value the role appropriately. Strong sales ops directly impacts revenue, even if they don’t carry quota. Compensation should reflect the value they create, not just the cost of an operational hire.

Review industry software sales compensation data to understand current market rates for operations roles.

Where to Find Sales Ops Talent

Sales ops managers come from several backgrounds:

• Other software companies. Candidates with SaaS sales ops experience understand the metrics, processes, and tools specific to software selling.
• Consulting backgrounds. Management consultants often have strong analytical skills and process thinking, though they may need to learn sales-specific context.
• Sales backgrounds. Former reps or managers who’ve moved into operations bring credibility and understanding of the selling motion, though they may need to develop technical skills.
• Finance or analytics roles. People from FP&A or business analytics can bring strong data skills, though they may need exposure to sales processes.
• Revenue operations at other companies. As RevOps has grown, candidates with broader revenue operations experience can bring cross-functional perspective.

For senior sales ops roles or when you need specific experience with your tech stack, working with a software recruiting firm can help you access candidates with relevant backgrounds.

Setting Sales Ops Up for Success

Hiring is only the beginning. Sales ops managers need proper support to succeed:

Clear scope and authority. Define what sales ops owns versus what sales leadership owns. Ambiguity about decision rights creates friction and slows progress.

Access to data and systems. Sales ops can’t function without access to the CRM, data warehouse, and other systems they need to do their job. Ensure they have admin rights and proper tooling.

Executive sponsorship. Sales ops recommendations often require change from sales teams. Leadership support is essential for driving adoption of new processes or tools.

Seat at the table. Include sales ops in planning discussions, leadership meetings, and strategic conversations. They need context to make good decisions and design effective solutions.

Reasonable expectations. Building sales operations infrastructure takes time. Set realistic expectations for what can be accomplished in the first 90 days versus the first year.

If you’re building a sales team from scratch, sales ops typically comes after you have a few reps and enough process complexity to warrant dedicated operational support. Many companies hire their first sales ops person when the team reaches 5-10 reps.

Sales Ops vs. Revenue Ops

A quick note on terminology: Revenue operations (RevOps) has emerged as a broader function that spans sales, marketing, and customer success operations. Some companies hire RevOps instead of separate ops roles for each function.

The core skills are similar, but RevOps requires broader scope and more cross-functional coordination. If you’re hiring for RevOps, look for candidates who understand the full customer lifecycle, not just the sales portion.

The Bottom Line

Hiring sales operations managers for your software company is an investment in sales effectiveness and scalability. The right sales ops hire brings structure to chaos, surfaces insights from data, and builds the infrastructure that lets your sales team perform at their best.

Take the time to find candidates with the right blend of analytical capability, technical proficiency, and business acumen. Evaluate their ability to think systematically and communicate clearly. And set them up with the access, authority, and support they need to make a real impact.

Good sales ops is a force multiplier. It makes everyone on your sales team more effective and gives leadership the visibility they need to make smart decisions.