Sales Business Development Director

About NEAR AI

Near.ai is building the future of private AI infrastructure. We’re an early‑stage startup providing a confidential compute inference network that hosts open‑source and custom models inside Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs). Our platform offers an OpenAI API‑compatible interface, enabling companies to leverage powerful AI capabilities without compromising on privacy. We serve organizations across financial services, legal, insurance, robotics, entertainment, and government sectors—companies that need verifiable privacy guarantees and can’t use traditional AI providers due to data sensitivity concerns.

We’re looking for our first Sales & Business Development Director to help build our sales motion from the ground up. You’ll work directly with the Chief Commercial Officer and the founding team to establish repeatable processes for identifying, engaging, and converting privacy‑conscious companies into Near.ai customers.

• Immerse yourself in confidential computing, TEEs, and the Near.ai technical value proposition
• Master our pitch and conduct cold outreach (calls, emails, Linked In) to build early pipeline
• Shadow customer conversations and demos to understand buyer personas and pain points
• Set up CRM hygiene practices in Attio and establish your prospecting workflow

• Book qualified meetings with CISOs, VPs of Engineering, Heads of Infrastructure, and AI/ML leaders
• Initiate 3+ pilots with target accounts in financial services, insurance, robotics, legal, and tech
• Build $5M+ of qualified pipeline through multi‑touch outbound sequences
• Begin managing warm inbound leads and supporting partnership development efforts
• Fine‑tune ideal customer profile, partner with marketing to fill top‑of‑funnel
• Attend industry conferences and events to build relationships and generate demand

• Own the top of funnel: cold outbound prospecting, lead qualification, and meeting generation with the marketing team
• Run technical demos and workshops (with product & engineering support as needed)
• Manage pilots through to conversion, maintaining close contact with prospects
• Maintain rigorous CRM hygiene and pipeline reporting in Attio
• Contribute to sales collateral, pitch decks, and outreach templates as we iterate on messaging
• Travel to conferences and customer meetings to build relationships and close business

5–10 years in B2B sales, with at least 3 years selling infrastructure, cloud compute, or developer tools to technical buyers. Proven track record of sales and business development excellence, exceeding quota and building pipeline in early‑stage or high‑growth environments. Strong existing network in target verticals (fintech, legal tech, insurance, AI/ML infrastructure, robotics, or cybersecurity). Technical fluency: ability to understand and articulate TEEs, confidential computing, AI inference, and competitive solutions (AWS Nitro, Azure Confidential Computing).

Experience using modern sales tools (Attio/Hub Spot/Salesforce, Linked In Sales Navigator, Apollo, or similar).

• Experience selling into CISOs, CTOs, VPs of Engineering, or compliance officers at 50–500 person companies
• Comfortable running technical workshops and discussing ML workloads, attestation, and privacy guarantees
• Scrappy and founder‑mode: you build processes rather than wait for them
• Thrives in ambiguity and can shift between cold calling, demos, pilots, and conferences in the same week
• Credibility or relationships in privacy‑focused tech communities, AI infrastructure circles, or regulated industries

• Hungry and creative: you find ways to open doors and don’t take no for an answer
• Technically curious: you enjoy learning complex concepts and translating them into benefits that resonate with buyers
• Low ego, high urgency: comfortable as one of the first non‑technical hires on a deeply technical team
• Execution & Process‑focused: you move fast, iterate, and measure what matters; you build repeatable, scalable processes
• Relationship‑driven: you build genuine connections and leverage your network to accelerate deals

You’ll…