Business Development Representative

Company: Upbound
Location: Remote
Job Type: Full-Time

About Upbound

Upbound is redefining modern infrastructure for the Agentic AI Era by creating the Intelligent Control Plane. As the creators and maintainers of Crossplane, Upbound empowers organizations to make their infrastructure programmable, autonomous, and composable. Their mission is to power the AI-native enterprise, ensuring infrastructure is ready for both humans and AI agents. Upbound serves Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers globally, with Crossplane boasting over 100M+ downloads. The company is a Series B startup backed by GV, Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital, having raised $69M to date.

About the Role

As a Business Development Representative (BDR) at Upbound, you will be instrumental in generating early-stage pipeline and serving as the crucial first point of contact in the sales cycle. You will engage high-intent prospects interested in Crossplane and proactively source new opportunities through targeted outbound efforts. This role is key to fueling Upbound's growth by connecting potential clients with solutions that revolutionize their infrastructure management.

What You’ll Do

• Establish and maintain strategic partnerships with assigned Account Executives (AEs).
• Engage marketing-qualified leads, event attendees, and high-intent prospects via multi-channel outreach.
• Conduct research and personalize outreach using email, phone, LinkedIn, Slack communities, and other channels.
• Research target accounts within defined segments and verticals to identify key personas and generate sales-qualified leads.
• Book qualified discovery meetings with IT, engineering, and executive stakeholders for AEs.
• Conduct meaningful discovery conversations to understand prospect challenges and articulate Upbound's value proposition.
• Proactively source your own leads through research and creative outbound strategies.

What You’ll Bring

• Bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, or a related field.
• 1–2 years of experience in sales, marketing, or a related role.
• Comfort operating in a technical environment; experience with open source and/or infrastructure is strongly preferred.
• A hunter mentality, resourcefulness, and a self-starter attitude.
• Genuine interest in building relationships, networking, and initiating conversations.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills.
• Experience with sales and marketing tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, Marketo, ZoomInfo, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

A Plus If You Have:

• Familiarity with Crossplane and/or Upbound.
• Experience with CNCF or other open-source cloud-native projects.
• Previous experience at a Series A, B, or C startup.