NEAR Foundation · 2 days ago
Sales & Business Development Director
San Francisco
Full-time
Onsite
Lead/Staff, Director/Executive
5+ years expNear.ai is an early-stage startup building the future of private AI infrastructure. They are seeking a Sales & Business Development Director to establish sales processes, generate leads, and engage privacy-conscious companies to become customers.
Information Technology & Services
Responsibilities
Immerse yourself in confidential computing, TEEs, and the Near.ai technical value proposition
Master our pitch and conduct cold outreach (calls, emails, LinkedIn) 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
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
Qualification
Required
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)
Preferred
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
Company
NEAR Foundation
NEAR Foundation is a non-profit foundation that is responsible for contracting protocol maintainers, funding ecosystem development.
2-10 employees
Funding
Current Stage
Early StageLeadership Team
Bill Earner
Chief Operating Officer
Recent News
2025-12-08
2025-12-04
EIN Presswire
2025-12-03
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