Sales Manager

Sales Manager – Strategic Account Management

Location: California
Compensation: $120,000 - $140,000 base + Excellent Bonus Upside
Industry: Advanced Manufacturing | Aerospace & Defense | Medical | Industrial

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This Isn’t a Traditional Sales Manager Role

Our client is a $100M+ advanced manufacturing organization in growth mode, and they’re looking for a commercial leader to help take an already talented Account Management organization to the next level.

If you're looking for a role where success means making 75 calls a day, building lists, and relentlessly chasing cold prospects, this isn't it.

This is a strategic leadership position.

You’ll lead a team of six high-performing Account Managers, help develop strategies around important customer relationships, identify opportunities to expand existing partnerships, and serve as a senior commercial voice with customers across aerospace & defense, commercial space, medical, and sophisticated industrial markets.

The foundation is already there: customers, relationships, capabilities, and a talented team.

The opportunity is to lead it.

What You’ll Be Responsible For

You’ll lead, coach, and develop an established Account Management team while helping create greater consistency, accountability, and commercial strategy across key customer relationships.

You will also:

• Develop account strategies designed to increase revenue, strengthen relationships, and expand share of wallet.
• Coach six Account Managers on pipeline development, customer strategy, negotiations, and account growth.
• Serve as a senior commercial resource for strategic and executive-level customer relationships.
• Identify opportunities to expand programs, services, and capabilities within existing customers.
• Establish revenue targets and longer-term growth strategies for key accounts.
• Partner closely with Program Management, Engineering, and Operations to ensure customer needs are translated into executable solutions.
• Help guide proposals, pricing strategies, commercial terms, and complex negotiations.
• Monitor bookings, pipeline health, account performance, revenue growth, and other key commercial metrics.
• Step into complex customer situations and commercial escalations when senior leadership is needed.
• Bring the voice of the customer back into the organization and help align internal teams around customer and business priorities.

The original position is specifically designed to grow existing strategic accounts and build executive-level relationships rather than simply generate transactional sales activity.

Who We’re Looking For

We’re looking for someone who understands that great account management is more than customer service—and great sales leadership is more than activity metrics.

You know how to look at an existing multimillion-dollar customer relationship and ask:

Where can this relationship go from here?

You can coach a strong Account Manager without micromanaging them. You know when to step into an executive conversation and when to let your team lead. And you're comfortable navigating the intersection of customers, engineering, operations, pricing, margins, and commercial strategy.

Ideally, you bring:

• 7+ years of experience within account management, sales, or business development.
• Meaningful experience within manufacturing, aerospace, defense, or another technically sophisticated industry.
• Previous experience leading and developing Account Managers or sales professionals.
• A track record of growing and retaining existing strategic accounts.
• Strong commercial instincts around pricing, margins, negotiation, and customer strategy.
• The executive presence to interact comfortably with sophisticated customers.
• The ability to work cross-functionally with technical, operational, and commercial teams.
• Experience with additive manufacturing is highly desirable.
• Familiarity with AS9100 and ITAR environments is beneficial.

The formal requirements call for 7+ years of relevant commercial experience, prior sales/account-management leadership, and preferably additive-manufacturing experience.

The Opportunity

This is a chance to join a growing organization at a point where commercial leadership can have a measurable impact on the next stage of the company.

You're not being brought in to rescue an underperforming team.

You're not being handed a phone and a cold list.

You're being given six talented people, important customer relationships, and a growing advanced-manufacturing platform—and being asked to make all three more valuable.

For the right person, that's a very different kind of sales leadership opportunity.

Transition Staffing Group is an award winning San Diego based staffing agency providing solutions on a Temporary, Temporary-to-Hire and Direct Hire basis. Through our affiliate network, we have offices in 35+ metropolitan areas, staffed by over 200 specialized recruiters. TSG offers a national reach, with local job market expertise. Recognized five years in a row by the San Diego Business Journal as one of the "Fastest Growing Privately Held Companies in San Diego." Additionally, recognized on the Inc.500 List twice for being one of the Fastest Growing Companies in the United States. TSG offers full Medical, Dental, Vision, Life Insurance (no waiting period) and matching 401(k) to every active consultant/temp