Business Development Specialist

ADASTEC Corp.; Detroit (MI); Hybrid; USD 70,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

ADASTEC Corp. in Detroit seeks a Business Development Specialist to drive North America growth for the flowride.ai platform.

The role blends engineering depth with commercial execution, explaining how the technology works and evaluating routes within our design domain to support deployments for transit agencies and cities. Based in Detroit with four days in the office and one day remote, you will handle lead qualification, customer engagements, tender responses, and Salesforce pipeline

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or STEM field or equivalent hands-on technical experience.
• 2–5 years in engineering, technical, business development, or technical sales roles with interest in customer-facing work.
• Ability to learn a complex technical system and explain it credibly to diverse audiences.
• Experience translating customer requirements into feasible solutions and constraints.
• Strong written communication for proposals and formal submissions.
• Legally authorized to work in the United States.

Responsibilities

• Assess candidate routes against operational design domain and identify constraints.
• Explain technology and operating conditions to agency staff and partners.
• Contribute to tender and grant responses with technical content.
• Own Salesforce data: maintain leads, opportunities, and contacts.
• Plan and attend industry events, manage logistics, speaking applications, and lead qualification.

Skills

Technical communication

Lead qualification

Customer engagement

Public sector sales

Sales opportunity management

Education

Bachelor’s degree in engineering or STEM

Tools

Salesforce

Job description

ADASTEC delivers SAE Level-4 Automated Driving Software Platform for commercial vehicles to enable OEMs to develop modern, automated, shared, and connected commercial vehicles. ADASTEC flowride.ai SAE Level-4 Automated Driving Software Platform integrated buses are on public roads in 14 countries in Europe & North America.

flowride.ai is designed with the fusion of different high-precision sensors available in the global market and complies with safety standards and regulations.

ADASTEC has an HQ and operation office in Michigan, USA, an EU Operations office in the Netherlands, Germany, and an R&D Office in Türkiye. For more information, visit www.adastec.com

We’re looking for a Business Development Specialist to support ADASTEC’s commercial growth across North America. This role blends technical and commercial work and plays a direct part in our go to market strategy, from generating and qualifying leads through the technical evaluation and proposals that turn them into deployments.

Our customers are transit agencies, cities, and the boards and stakeholders who fund them. They come from a wide range of backgrounds, operations, planning, procurement, and public leadership, which is exactly why this role needs technical depth. You’ll be the person explaining how the technology works, what conditions it operates in, and whether a proposed route falls within our operational design domain, clearly enough that they can make a confident decision. That means knowing our technical constraints in real detail and being able to assess a candidate route against them rather than escalating every question.

This is a strong opportunity for someone with an engineering or technical background who wants to move toward a commercial or sales engineering career. If you’ve worked in autonomous vehicles, automotive, or a related technical field and want to spend more time with customers and less time heads down, this role is built for that transition. We’ll expect you to bring the technical depth and we’ll support you in building the commercial side.

The role is based in Detroit with four days in the office and one day working from home. Travel is occasional, typically one to two short trips per month depending on the event calendar, with some months requiring none.

You’ll report to the North America Operations Director, with a path toward a Senior Business Development Specialist role as you take on more pipeline and customer ownership.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Assessing candidate routes against ADASTEC’s operational design domain, identifying constraints, gaps, and what would be required to make a route viable
• Explaining our technology to agency staff and partners, including how it works, the conditions it operates in, and its current limitations
• Contributing to tender and grant responses, drafting technical content, gathering inputs from internal teams, and assembling complete and compliant submissions
• Owning our Salesforce data, maintaining leads, opportunities, and contacts with disciplined follow up so the pipeline always reflects reality
• Planning and attending industry events, including logistics, speaking and panel applications, and lead collection and qualification

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or a STEM field, or equivalent hands on technical experience
• 2 to 5 years of experience in an engineering, technical, business development, or technical sales role, with genuine interest in moving toward customer facing work
• Ability to learn a complex technical system in depth and explain it credibly to both engineering and non-technical audiences
• Comfort working with technical constraints and specifications, and translating customer requirements into what is and is not feasible
• Strong written communication, with experience contributing to proposals, technical documents, or formal submissions
• Legally authorized to work in the United States.

Nice to have

• Background in transit, transportation, automotive, or mobility
• Familiarity with autonomous vehicle, ADAS, or advanced mobility technology, including operational design domain concepts
• Familiarity with FTA, USDOT, or FHWA grant programs and federal procurement processes
• Experience working in a CRM, with Salesforce preferred
• Interest in public transportation and its role in building safer, more accessible communities

ADASTEC is committed to equal opportunity employment and welcomes candidates from diverse backgrounds.