Founding Sales Engineer

This position is listed on behalf of a partner company, who manages all applications and next steps. Our partner is looking for a Founding Sales Engineer based in Canada.

This is an early-stage opportunity to help build and scale the sales function for a fast-growing AI infrastructure business. You will own the full sales cycle across mid-market and enterprise accounts, working directly with senior leadership to turn technical AI needs into compelling business solutions. The role combines consultative selling, technical discovery, product demonstrations, and strategic account development. You will engage directly with CTOs, ML leaders, developers, and infrastructure decision-makers throughout complex sales processes. As an early sales hire, you will help shape acquisition and expansion playbooks while establishing repeatable processes for future growth. This is a high-autonomy environment for an entrepreneurial sales professional who understands cloud infrastructure, MLOps, AI, or developer tooling and thrives without a predefined playbook.

• Own full-cycle sales across mid-market and enterprise segments, from initial contact through discovery, proposals, negotiation, and signed contracts.
• Build and manage a pipeline of scale-up and high-growth startup accounts while identifying new business opportunities.
• Lead technical discovery and tailored product demonstrations based on each prospect’s technology stack, AI requirements, and use cases.
• Develop customized proposals and business cases that connect AI model inference requirements with relevant technical and commercial solutions.
• Build trusted, executive-level relationships with CTOs, ML leaders, developers, and infrastructure decision-makers.
• Negotiate and close complex, multi-stakeholder deals while maintaining strong pipeline momentum.
• Identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities within existing accounts to drive expansion revenue.
• Work closely with the CRO to refine acquisition, sales, and expansion playbooks and establish repeatable processes.
• Partner with BDR and Developer Relations teams to generate and advance qualified pipeline.
• Use AI tools to automate research, personalize outreach, and improve sales workflow efficiency.
• Maintain accurate CRM activity, pipeline stages, forecasting, and reporting in HubSpot.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to communicate customer feedback and market insights.
• Mentor BDRs and contribute to defining effective pipeline-generation standards.
• Represent the organization at industry events and conferences to generate relationships and advance opportunities.

Requirements:

• 3–6 years of experience in a closing sales role within Cloud Infrastructure, MLOps, AI, developer tooling, or a closely related technical market.
• Proven success closing deals with technical buyers, including developers, ML engineers, CTOs, and infrastructure leaders.
• Experience navigating complex, multi-stakeholder enterprise sales cycles.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to communicate technical concepts clearly, concisely, and credibly.
• Entrepreneurial, self-directed mindset with the ability to build effective sales processes and operate without an established playbook.
• Strong business judgment and the ability to connect technical requirements with customer value and commercial outcomes.
• Highly disciplined approach to forecasting, CRM management, and data-driven pipeline management.
• Familiarity with HubSpot and modern sales and AI productivity tools such as Clay, Claude, ChatGPT, or equivalent platforms.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with senior leadership, BDRs, Developer Relations, Product, and Engineering teams.
• Comfortable working in a fast-moving environment where responsibilities and processes evolve rapidly.

Benefits:

• On-target earnings of $150,000–$190,000 USD.
• Competitive base salary plus commission.
• Fully remote opportunity available to candidates in Canada or the United States.
• Opportunity to build and shape the Account Executive/sales function at an early stage.
• Direct collaboration with senior sales leadership, with meaningful influence on company growth and strategy.
• Opportunity to work in the rapidly evolving AI infrastructure and open-model ecosystem.
• Small, high-performing team with significant ownership and entrepreneurial autonomy.
• Opportunity to help expand access to open-weight AI technologies.