The SDR Career Path: A Recipe to Develop Outbound Talent

And What Top Teams Like Rippling & Aircall Do Differently

Read time: 28 min

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A few weeks ago, an SDR director asked me:

Q: Our SDR tenure is getting longer. How do I keep them motivated before they get promoted?

Here’s the hard truth: Most companies mess up SDR career paths:

• No clear career path (just “grind and we’ll see”)

• Overpromising AE promotions (6 months? Lol, be serious.)

• No clear promotion criteria

• Ignoring SDRs as future AEs & hiring externally

• No skill development (just more dials, more emails, no growth)

• Promoting based on tenure, not performance

• Huge SDR-to-AE pay gap

The cost of getting it wrong

• Unmotivated reps = low performance

• Attrition = pipeline gaps + lost revenue + high cost

• Hiring new reps is expensive

If you don’t set clear timelines, build a real growth plan, and pay SDRs fairly, they’ll treat the role like a short-term gig and bounce.

But there’s a bigger problem in 2025…

Even if you fix all of that, SDR tenure is increasing.

Some companies just aren’t growing as fast, so there are fewer AE spots.

That means you can’t just say, “Do well and you’ll get promoted.”

You need a structured career path and plan that actually makes sense.

If you’re a GTM leader, it’s on you to build a career path SDRs trust.

What we’re covering today:

• Part 1 - Setting the right expectations, before they even apply

• Part 2 - How to develop SDR skills

• Part 3 - Micro-Promotions:

  • Simple Career Path

  • Career path for bigger sales teams

  • Intern Program

• Part 4 - After the SDR role? What's next?

  • SDR-to-AE Path (including a template: SDR-to-AE program)

  • SDR to Management Path

• Including Real SDR career Path examples from SDRs team with 20-300+ SDRs

To unpack this, I’ve gathered insights from my own experience and 14 top outbound teams:

Rippling, Snowflake, Zscaler, Talkdesk, Aircall, Pigment, Toast, MaintainX, Salesforce, Forrester, Owner, Darktrace, Cognism, SmartRecruiters.

Let's get cooking!

The SDR Career Path Recipe

The goal is to keep SDRs excited, challenged to do their best work, every day and clear on how to grow.

The SDR Role Isn’t a Sprint. It’s a Career Foundation

And put the SDR org as a key pillar of talent development for a business.

Here are the ingredients you need to keep them motivated long-term:

• Setting the right expectations, before they even apply

• Developing their skills

• Increase responsibilities

• Micro-promotions

• Being ready and have a program for their next role

Part 1 - Setting the right expectations, before they even apply

Let's start with answering this question:

So, how long should a top SDR stay in the SDR role before getting promoted?

Trish Bertuzzi asked this in a survey and got 2 very different answers:

• Sales Leaders: 21 months

• Reps: 15 months

But the median rep expects a promotion or job change in just 11 months.

That’s like parents expecting their kids to move out at 22, while the kids plan to stay rent-free into their 30s. Huge gap.

I run 2 polls on LinkedIn, and I got similar results as Trish so it still confirms this trend.

75% of the answers was SDRs should stay less than 12 months in their roles and 24% 16-24+ months.

But the reality of the average SDR tenure:

• 48% - 6-12 months

• 52% - 18-24+ months

And if they don’t get promoted on time?

They’re way less likely to recommend the company:

Impact of promotion expectations on rep enthusiasm, Data from the Sales Development Playbook

Why this happens: Hiring Managers oversell the SDR role

To “close the candidate,” companies overhype everything, comp, role, career path. It helps win the talent war, but sets reps up with unrealistic expectations from day one.

Too many companies say, “You’ll be an AE in a year,” then change the rules. That’s how you lose good reps.

We made this mistake at Chili Piper, promising a 6-month promotion, at the beginning it worked, but then the businesses started to slow down so less possibilities to get promoted. Some SDR left because they didn't get promoted. And we promoted SDRs to AE too fast because we needed AEs.

The problem with that you set the wrong expectations, then your talent isn’t motivated anymore.

Even Sean Hayes, the VP of BDR/SDR at Aircall said they made the same mistake:

It was 2020. Middle of the pandemic. An SDR who had only been in the role for six months messaged him on Zoom and said: “I want to apply for an AE role.” He stayed calm. But inside, he was thinking:

• They just started hitting quota.

• Other SDRs were more experienced.

• They had zero prior sales experience.

But then it hit him, this wasn’t their fault. It was their (leaders).

They had set the wrong expectations for career growth.

• In the past, we promoted SDRs to AE too fast because we needed AEs.

• That created a precedent: hit quota a few times, and you’re on the fast track.

• The result? SDRs thought they were “ready” after a few months, even if they weren’t.

The fix?

Be honest about career growth.

Set clear expectations, before they even apply.

If you’re hiring SDRs with the promise of promotion, make it crystal clear when and how it happens, before they join.

Share what you’ve built. In a competitive hiring market, having a clear advancement plan is a huge advantage.

How long it typically takes (e.g., 12–15 months)

Communicate a clear timeline for SDRs to transition into AE roles (or other roles) during the hiring process.

But upfront about business needs (AE team growing, an AE leaving, etc) prevents misunderstandings and sets realistic expectations among SDRs.

In Trish Bertuzzi's book, Stephen DePaoli (Senior Director of Sales Dev at Arena Solutions) puts it best:

“We tell candidates about the person who got promoted in 6 months, but we also tell them they could spend 2 years in the role.”

For example, some orgs set a 12-month expectation but may adjust based on performance and organizational needs.

Salesforce expectations:

• BD Associate (Intern): 4-6 months

• SDR: 12 months

• BDR: 12-18 months

Here are 3 examples of companies being upfront even before applying.

Snowflake expectations on their SDR career page: 12-15 months

Zscaler expectations on their SDR career page: 12-18 months

Forester on their SDR career page: 18-24 months

Set promotion criteria early, things like hitting quota, getting certifications, or showing key skills like negotiation and multi-threading.

Focus on performance, not tenure. Just because someone has been an SDR longer doesn’t mean they’ll be a great AE. Strong results matter more.

A VP of Sales put it simply:

“Hitting your numbers is the bare minimum. If you want to be promoted to AE, you need to hit your meetings, and SQOs, no exceptions.”

When hiring, make the career path clear from the start. If candidates don’t see a future in the role, they’ll look elsewhere.

Another question you might have:

“How long should an SDR stay before moving to AE and be successful in this new role?"

(great question)

It depends on the sales process:

• Transactional sales → Faster promotions, some companies move SDRs to AE in 14 months.

• Complex sales → Takes longer, 2+ years. Pigment, for example, has a longer path for SDRs before promoting them.

My observation:

• Early-stage startups promote faster because they need AEs quickly, like what we’re doing at Chili Piper.

• Larger companies take their time, offering structured growth plans to train and coach their SDRs before getting promoted.

ACV Affects Promotion Timeframe

Real-world SDR-to-AE career paths (The Sales Development Playbook)

Aircall tracked the numbers and saw a clear pattern:

• AEs who had 12+ months of SDR experience performed 28% better in their first year.

• AEs who had 18+ months performed 40% better than those who moved up too fast.

The solution? They set a minimum tenure for SDRs before they could move to AE, unless they had prior experience.

This gave them a clear timeline and removed false expectations.

Part 2 - How to develop SDR skills

If you want SDRs to grow in their career, give them a real plan to develop their sales skills.

1 - Personal Development Plans (PDPs) → Track Growth

• One PDP for their current SDR role

• One PDP for their next role (once they know what they want)

This removes guesswork, they know exactly what skills they need now and for the future.

2 - Tie Promotions to Skills and Performance (Not Tenure)

• Certifications that actually matter: Discovery calls, account mapping, multi-threading.

• Performance + Learning: Hit quota + pass skill-based milestones (e.g., product tests).

Example: Procore’s bronze-silver-gold-platinum system balances skills + performance.

3 - Structured Training → Not just “Watch this Loom video”

• Certifications for key SDR skills: account-mapping, account-based strategy, etc.

• Certifications for key skills for their next role: discovery, demoing, forecasting, how to run a 1:1, etc.

• Dedicated enablement teams (Snowflake, Momentum & Lattice do this well).

• Self-Paced Training Modules so top SDRs can fast-track promotions.

Real example: Aircall fixed this

Aircall had training, but no structured career path. SDRs were stuck.

So they built a career development plan SDRs could follow weekly.

Results?

A study with Gong & SalesWorks showed 82% of SDRs wanted more learning. After rolling this out? Only 2% still asked for more training.

3 - Micro-promotions in SDR teams

Most companies treat Senior SDR promotions as cheap retention hacks.

A title change, and… nothing actually changes.

That’s another reason why SDRs leave.

Here’s how to make micro-promotions actually work.

1 - Build a career progression before you need It

Define clear steps: Junior SDR → Senior SDR → Outbound SDR → AE (or other paths).

Tie promotions to real metrics (not tenure) and skill development. Example:

• 100% quota for 2 quarters

• 65%+ opportunity acceptance rate

• Mentored 2+ new hires

No guesswork. No favoritism. No “I was here first” complaints.

2 - Stop mixing inbound & outbound SDRs

Combining inbound and outbound responsibilities leads to reduced outbound activity as reps rely on easier inbound leads.

Separate inbound and outbound teams for optimal performance. Avoid hybrid models unless necessary; they often dilute outbound productivity.

3 - Promotions should mean something

Micro-promotions ≠ Just a new title. Give them more responsibility, new challenges, access to bigger deals.

Example:

• Unlock conferences,

• Eligible for leading daily skill development

• Eligible for helping interview XDR candidates

• Eligible for helping build enablement strategy

• Etc

4 - Pay them for the work

At Chili Piper, we added $5K to base salary for Senior SDRs.

5 - Get finance on board early

Dave Wilkins (Founder, SDR Leaders of EMEA) told me:

“The key for this is to have the budget for those promotions already agreed with finance before the hire. We created a model with finance where we had a “cost envelope” for the salary, insurance etc of each headcount. I made sure we asked for the micro promotion baked into that number, to avoid this annoying conversations later down the line”

6 - One reason SDRs leave? Boredom.

Even top-performing SDRs earning six figures leave if they’re not challenged.

Intrinsic motivation (career growth) often outweighs extrinsic rewards (money).

Simple Career Path for SDRs

Yon can start with a simple career path.

Start with a clear progression:

• Inbound SDR → Handles technical conversations but is often seen as less skilled than outbound. Can move into Customer Success or Marketing.

• Outbound SDR → Builds resilience and prospecting skills, making them a strong fit for AE roles.

Here are 1 example:

Cognism career path: Commercial SDR → Enterprise SDR → Senior Enterprise SDR → Get promoted to another role.

Career path for bigger sales teams

Here are 7 other examples:

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🔒 Wait! Want the Full SDR Career Path Recipe?

Here’s a sneak peek of what’s inside:

• 7 SDR Career Path Examples → Rippling, Aircall, Chili Piper, Pigment, Toast, Darktrace

• 8-week SDR → AE transition program template

• Rippling's and Toast's manager development programs

• Salesforce BDA Internship Program

🔓 For paid subscribers only:

Start your free trial or upgrade now to unlock the full recipe (plus bonus resources & examples!)