Business Development Associate – Europe

Rowden; Bristol; Hybrid; GBP 40,000 - 60,000; Full time

Job summary

A leading engineering firm in Bristol is seeking a Business Development Associate to support international growth and drive commercial momentum. The role involves customer-facing responsibilities, nurturing partner relationships, and ensuring operational excellence across the sales lifecycle. Candidates should have 1–5 years of experience, strong technical aptitude, and excellent communication skills. The company promotes a flexible working environment and encourages applicants from diverse backgrounds.

Benefits

Flexible working arrangements

Support for disability and health conditions

Qualifications

• 1–5 years of career experience.
• Strong technical aptitude and desire to understand technical products in depth.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Disciplined, organised, and highly accountable for executing effectively.
• Willing to travel regularly.

Responsibilities

• Foster trusted customer relationships.
• Drive commercial execution in collaboration with account managers.
• Oversee order fulfilment and maintain CRM records.

Skills

Strong technical aptitude

Excellent communication skills

Organizational skills

Interpersonal skills

Job description

Overview

Department: Revenue Operations

Location: Bristol, UK

Compensation: £40,000 - £60,000 / year

Rowden is building the next UK-headquartered engineering powerhouse. We design and integrate advanced systems that sense, connect, and protect data in environments where fast, informed decision-making is vital. Our goal is to deliver mission advantage to those working to safeguard national security, public safety, and critical infrastructure.

Headquartered in Bristol (UK), we combine modern engineering methods with cutting-edge commercial technology to create adaptable, mission-critical systems. We focus on solving the tough challenges that others overlook, ensuring our customers can operate effectively in an ever-changing world.

The Role

We’re looking for a Business Development Associate to support our international growth and help drive commercial momentum. This is a hands-on, customer-facing role for someone early in their career who is motivated to grow into an exciting sales role.

You’ll work closely with our International Account Executive and cross-functional teams to manage partner relationships, support pipeline development, and ensure operational excellence across the sales lifecycle. This role involves regular travel and offers a unique opportunity to gain broad exposure across sales, engineering, and delivery.

Salary Ranges: For transparency and to help candidates make informed decisions, the range for this specific role is £40,000- £60,000 DOE. However, we’re a growing organisation with wider opportunities across sales, so we’re keen to hear from candidates who may fall outside of this range and encourage you also to apply.

Key areas of responsibility

• Foster Trusted Customer & Partner Relationships
• Develop trusted relationships with international channel partners so that they are empowered and motivated to sell our products and provide regular insights from end users.
• Engage directly with end users to understand the problems they are trying to solve, gather valuable feedback, and support demos and engagements.
• Represent Rowden at meetings, events, and industry forums, operating as a credible and enthusiastic ambassador for our mission.

• Drive Commercial Execution
• Work with Account Executives to shape the sales pipeline and track progress through the CRM.
• Support the preparation of marketing materials, customer-facing content, and tailored demos that bring our technology to life.
• Coordinate contracts for new orders, ensuring timely execution and alignment with internal processes.

• Drive Operational Excellence
• Oversee order fulfilment, working with supply chain and logistics teams to ensure smooth and timely delivery to customers.
• Collaborate across functions, including engineering, legal, and delivery, to ensure seamless execution and a joined-up customer experience.
• Maintain accurate CRM records and support reporting to ensure visibility and momentum across the team.

About You

You are a confident communicator with a strong technical grasp and a passion for solving customer problems. You’re motivated to roll up your sleeves, learn fast, and grow into a sales-focused role over time.

Key skills, experience and behaviours

Essential

• 1–5 years of career experience.
• Strong technical aptitude and desire to understand technical products in depth.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills.
• Disciplined, organised, and highly accountable for executing effectively.
• Willing to travel regularly.

Desirable

• Experience in sales, account management, or customer-facing roles.
• Military background or experience selling into defence/government.

Behaviours That Matter

• Mission-focused – Committed to delivering the best outcomes for end users.
• Curious & Adaptive – Hungry to learn, open to feedback, and quick to adapt to new challenges.
• Disciplined & Organised – Structured in planning and reporting, ensuring momentum and clarity.
• Strong communicator – Builds authentic relationships and adapts messaging to suit different audiences.
• Collaborative – Works seamlessly across sales, technical, and delivery teams, creating shared ownership of outcomes.

Working at Rowden

We are committed to building a flexible, inclusive, and enabling company. Our aim is to create a diverse team of talented people with unique skills, experience, and backgrounds, so please apply and come as you are!

We also recognise the importance of flexible working and support this wherever we can. We typically operate a flexible, hybrid-working model, with an average 3 days in the office each week (dependent on the role). We welcome the opportunity to discuss flexibility, part-time working requirements and/or workplace adjustments with all our applicants.

Rowden is a Disability Confident Committed company, and we actively encourage people with disabilities and health conditions to apply for our roles. Please let us know your requirements early on so that we can make sure you have everything you need up front to help make the recruitment process and experience as easy as possible.

Finally, if you feel that you don’t meet all the criteria included above but have transferable skills and relevant experience, we’d still love to hear from you!