Upbound is redefining how modern infrastructure is built for the Agentic AI Era. We’re the creators and primary maintainers of Crossplane, and we’re building the Intelligent Control Plane—a new platform layer that makes infrastructure programmable, autonomous, and composable.
Our mission is to power the AI-native enterprise with a foundational platform layer that helps teams provision, operate, and adapt infrastructure at scale—so platforms are ready for both humans and AI agents. We partner with leading cloud providers, ISVs, and open-source communities to help organizations move faster with greater confidence.
Today, Upbound supports Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers across 100+ countries. Crossplane has surpassed 100M+ downloads and is used by 1,000+ teams worldwide. We’re a Series B company backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital, and we’ve raised $69M to date. Learn more at upbound.io
As a Business Development Representative at Upbound, you will own early-stage pipeline generation and serve as the first touchpoint in the sales cycle. You’ll play a critical role in growing our pipeline by engaging high-intent prospects who have shown interest in Crossplane, while also sourcing and developing new opportunities through targeted outbound efforts.
In this role, you will qualify inbound leads, execute focused outbound outreach, and set up high-quality discovery conversations for the sales team. You’ll build meaningful relationships within the community, research and engage target accounts, and support events, sales operations, and special projects. Serving as a key bridge between Marketing and Sales, your primary mission is to generate qualified pipeline and help fuel Upbound’s growth. You will report directly to the Head of BDR and work closely with both the Sales and Marketing teams.
What You'll Do- Establish and maintain a collaborative, strategic partnership with the assigned AE’s.
- Engage marketing-qualified leads, event attendees, and high-intent prospects through thoughtful, multi-channel outreach.
- Target prospects through research and personalization using email, phone, LinkedIn, Slack communities, and other channels.
- Research accounts within defined segments and verticals to identify target personas and generate sales-qualified leads.
- Book qualified meetings with IT, engineering, and executive stakeholders for the Account Executives you support.
- Have meaningful discovery conversations to understand prospect challenges and articulate the value of Crossplane and Upbound.
- Outbound and source your own leads through various channels using research and creatively to book meetings.
- A 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; open source and/or infrastructure exposure is strongly preferred.
- Hunter mentality, resourcefulness, and self-starter.
- A genuine interest in building relationships, networking, and starting conversations.
- Strong written and verbal communication skills.
- Experience using sales and marketing tools such as HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, Marketo, ZoomInfo, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
A plus if you:
- You’re familiar with Crossplane and/or Upbound
- Familiarity with CNCF or other open source cloud-native projects.
- You’ve worked at a Series A, B or C startup
#LI-REMOTE
At Upbound, you’ll help shape the systems and strategies that drive predictable, scalable growth in a product-led company embracing usage-based models. If you're excited to build from the ground up, work with cutting-edge cloud technologies, and directly impact how revenue is generated and scaled—this is your seat at the table.
About Upbound
Upbound is pioneering infrastructure platforms for the Agentic AI Era, serving Fortune 500 companies and platform engineers across more than 100 countries. The company empowers infrastructure and platform teams with Intelligent Control Planes - based on Kubernetes and Crossplane - that provision, operate, and adapt so platforms are ready for both humans and AI agents. Upbound is the creator and primary maintainer of Crossplane, the popular open-source framework for building cloud-native control planes, with over 100 million downloads and adoption by more than 1,000 teams worldwide. A Series B startup backed by GV (formerly Google Ventures), Altimeter Capital, and Intel Capital, Upbound has raised $69M to date. For more information, visit www.upbound.io.
Skills Required
- Bachelor's degree in business, marketing, or related field
- 1-2 years of experience in sales, marketing, or a related role
- Comfort operating in a technical environment
- Open source and/or infrastructure exposure
- Hunter mentality, resourcefulness, and self-starter
- Genuine interest in building relationships and networking
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Experience using sales and marketing tools (HubSpot, Salesforce, Outreach, Marketo, ZoomInfo, LinkedIn Sales Navigator)
- Familiarity with Crossplane and/or Upbound
- Familiarity with CNCF or other open source cloud-native projects
- Experience working at a Series A, B, or C startup
What We Do
Upbound is the industry’s first platform for building internal cloud platforms. Designed around control planes, Upbound offers a new methodology for building an internal cloud platform, purpose-built for your organization. Customers can build, deploy, manage, secure, and use their platforms all from a single point of control. Upbound is designed for enterprise, ensuring performance, multi-tenancy and security. Built on the popular open-source Crossplane project, platforms running on Upbound evolve with customers as business requirements change — customers never have to re-platform again. With Upbound, businesses deliver value to customers faster, see higher employee productivity, and reduce the costs of running applications.
Why Work With Us
We're a fully remote and global team that is modernizing the industry's approach to cloud infrastructure and consumption. Here you'll be a significant part of driving that modernization and leave an indelible mark on the future of technology. We encourage Upbounders to collaborate, care for one another, and engage in vulnerability.
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