Sales Development Performance Lead

What You’ll Do

As part of a new Center of Excellence we are creating a new role of Sales Development Performance Lead (Performance Lead). The Performance Lead is a manager level individual contributor within Avalara's global Sales Development organization. This is a newly created, upleveled role born from a deliberate decision to separate production accountability from quality accountability - freeing Managers to own attainment and daily execution while the Performance Lead owns the quality, consistency, and enablement infrastructure that makes attainment sustainable over time.

This is not a training coordinator role. It is a practitioner role. The Performance Lead carries a small monthly personal quota - approximately 10-20% of the individual XDR’s quota they will support - because being on the phone keeps the Performance Lead current on what prospects are saying, what objections are landing, and what the market looks and sounds like today.

XDRs will observe the Performance Lead make live calls. That is part of the job design. Credibility in this role comes from doing, not from being designated.

The Performance Lead's primary success metric is not personal production. It is the percentage of XDRs they support who achieve quota – currently targeting: 75–80%+ of the team hitting quota. The Performance Lead achieves this through structured call listening (Gong), live side‑by‑sides, Hyperbound scoring and AI coaching, certification administration and scoring, and individual development planning grounded in data. I would add some responsibility in here around promoting AI use and workflow automation.

The Performance Lead is structured regionally but connected globally. Each region - US, EMEA, and India - has at least one dedicated Performance Lead. All Performance Leads operate against the same QA scorecard, the same certification framework, and the same Performance Lead charter. A weekly global Performance Lead sync ensures top‑performer insights flow from each region to all regions, and that coaching standards remain consistent regardless of geography.

The Performance Lead partners daily with regional Managers. The division of responsibility is explicit: the Performance Lead owns quality and enablement; the Manager owns production and performance management. The two functions are designed to reinforce each other, not duplicate.

• Drive regional team quota attainment, with a primary KPI of 75–80%+ of XDRs in the region hitting quota consistently. Monitor individual and team performance data daily, surface early warning signals before they become pipeline problems, and translate data patterns into targeted coaching actions.
• Own call quality through active listening and live coaching. Review 5+ Gong-recorded calls per month per XDR, score against the global QA scorecard, and deliver structured individual debriefs. Conduct weekly live side‑by‑side during XDR call blocks - observing, coaching in real time, and modeling correct behavior on the phone.
• Carry and work a small personal quota of approximately 10-20% of the individual XDR’s quota. Make calls alongside the XDR team, invite observation, and use your own live calls as teaching moments. Being active on the phone is the mechanism by which the Performance Lead remains credible and current.
• Administer and score XDR certifications across the full regional XDR population:
  Product Knowledge Test, Prospecting & Process Assessment, and Cold Call Certification. Use certification results to build individual, rep‑specific development plans - not generic training programs. Track progression and re‑assess on a defined cadence.
• Drive Hyperbound scoring and AI-assisted coaching. Assign targeted scenarios, track score…