Sales & Business Development Director

NEAR Foundation • San Francisco, CA

3d • Onsite

About The Position

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. Unlike expensive alternatives like AWS Nitro Enclaves, we provide cryptographic attestation proving privacy at a significantly lower price point, with high SLAs and custom model hosting capabilities.
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.
This role blends partnerships, sales development, and early GTM experimentation — but starts with outbound pipeline generation.

Requirements

• 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/HubSpot/Salesforce, LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Apollo, or similar)

Nice To Haves

• 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

Responsibilities

• Work with the marketing team to own the top of funnel: cold outbound prospecting, lead qualification, and meeting generation
• 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

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: No Education Listed