Regional Director, SLED

Our mission is to automate coding. The first step in our journey is to build the best tool for professional programmers, using a combination of inventive research, design, and engineering. Our organization is very flat, and our team is small and talent dense. We particularly like people who are truth-seeking, passionate, and creative. We enjoy spirited debate, crazy ideas, and shipping code. About the role As Regional Director, SLED at Cursor, you'll build and lead the team responsible for revenue growth across our state, local, and education (SLED) accounts within Public Sector. You'll hire, coach, and scale a team of Account Executives, set territory and account strategy, and personally engage in top strategic and executive-level relationships. You'll partner with engineering and IT leaders across state and local agencies, school districts, and higher education institutions — from CTOs to program leads — to show how Cursor transforms developer productivity, and drive land-and-expand motion at scale across the segment. This role requires deep technical fluency, command of complex public sector buying processes, and a genuine passion for AI-powered developer tools. You'll be a foundational leader in our enterprise sales organization. What you’ll do - Build, hire, and lead a high-performing team of SLED Account Executives; own forecasting, pipeline health, and quota attainment across the region.

• Set and execute go-to-market strategy for a named territory of state agencies, local governments, and educational institutions, driving new logo acquisition, expansion revenue, and long-term strategic growth.
• Personally engage in the largest, most strategic deals — leading complex, multi-threaded sales cycles across Engineering, IT, Security, Procurement, Legal, and mission-critical stakeholders.
• Coach your team to become trusted product experts, guiding SLED prospects through trials, technical evaluations, security reviews, and large-scale rollouts.
• Build executive relationships across state and local agencies, school systems, universities, and integrators, and represent Cursor at the CIO/CISO/superintendent/senior-executive level.
• Establish clear ROI frameworks tied to developer productivity, AI adoption, mission outcomes, and secure software delivery, and ensure your team applies them consistently.
• Serve as the voice of the SLED customer to leadership, shaping roadmap, compliance, deployment, and procurement strategy.
• Partner closely with Field Engineering and the AI Deployment team to ensure outcomes from proof of concept through production deployment and expansion.
• Navigate and build repeatable playbooks for state and local procurement processes, contract vehicles (e.g., NASPO, cooperative purchasing agreements), and partners to accelerate adoption across the region.

• You have a consistent track record of building and leading teams that land new logos, expand strategic accounts, and exceed quota.
• You're a builder — you've stood up or scaled a territory/team from the ground up, with a bias for hands-on involvement in outbound prospecting, account mapping, and partner leverage.
• You're comfortable navigating complex state, local, and education sales cycles and coaching others to sell to technical and mission-oriented stakeholders — from engineers and program leaders to CISOs, CIOs, superintendents, and senior executives.
• You understand SLED buying motions, procurement processes, security expectations, and partner ecosystems (resellers, cooperative contracts, systems integrators), and can translate that knowledge into team strategy and enablement.
• You bring an analytical approach to pipeline and forecasting, combined with the creative, tactical instincts to unblock deals and coach reps through them.
• You're an excellent communicator and leader who builds trust across all levels of an organization — your team, customers, and executive stakeholders alike.
• You're passionate about AI and excited by the idea that transforming how software gets written is one of the most important problems to work on right now.

• Showcase Excel mastery with a public‑sector dashboard: Build a mini‑project (one‑page Excel workbook) that maps SLED procurement cycles, forecast revenue by agency, and visualizes win‑rate trends. Include slicers, pivot tables, and conditional formatting, and attach the file or a short video walkthrough to your application to prove you can turn raw data into actionable insights for the team.
• Quantify past SLED leadership impact: In your resume and interview, cite concrete metrics (e.g., “grew state‑government pipeline from $2 M to $12 M in 18 months,” “hired & onboarded 5 AEs in 3 months with 80 % quota attainment”). Prepare a one‑page “Leadership Snapshot” that highlights hiring cadence, coaching methods, and the revenue milestones you drove.
• Deliver a ready‑to‑discuss territory strategy: Draft a 2‑page strategic plan for a target state or education district (choose one from Cursor’s current market list). Outline account segmentation, key decision‑maker mapping, procurement timelines, and a go‑to‑market playbook that aligns with Cursor’s “truth‑seeking, creative” culture. Bring printed copies or a PDF to the interview and be prepared to walk through it step‑by‑step.
• Demonstrate cross‑functional product influence: Prepare a short case study (max 3 slides) showing how you previously partnered with engineering or product teams to translate public‑sector feedback into feature roadmaps—preferably a story where your input led to a shipped code change that unlocked a new SLED win. Emphasize the collaborative debate style that Cursor values.
• Negotiate with data‑driven compensation framing: Research current remote SaaS Regional Director packages (base $180‑$220 k, 0.1‑0.3 % equity, performance bonuses tied to SLED revenue). In the offer discussion, propose a tiered bonus structure (e.g., 15 % of base at $5 M ARR, 25 % at $10 M ARR) and request an equity refresh after the first fiscal year if you meet or exceed your territory plan. Present these numbers in a concise table to show you’re results‑focused and market‑aware.