Commercial Associate

Kernel; London (KY); On-site; USD 73,000 - 99,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

OTE £63k + equity

London office + top-spec equipment

24 days holiday + bank holidays

£450 Monthly Office Dinner Allowance

2 weeks work-from-anywhere

Pension plan

Team events and founders’ exposure

High-autonomy, fast-paced environment

Job summary

Kernel is seeking sales-minded professionals to own a book of pre-tiered accounts and build qualified pipeline. The role is outbound-heavy, focused on calls, LinkedIn, and multi-channel outreach to generate meetings for AEs, with collaboration across Marketing and GTM teams.

You'll operate in a fast-paced, high-visibility environment in London, with a generous OTE and equity, designed for high autonomy and rapid career progression.

Qualifications

• No traditional sales experience required; willingness to learn and excel in a sales role.
• Proven track record of high performance and achievement.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Curious, research-oriented mindset with ability to understand "why now" for prospects.
• Proactive, entrepreneurial attitude and ownership of results.
• Competitive and goal-driven with resilience.

Responsibilities

• Identify and research high-fit companies and decision-makers using Kernel data.
• Build and maintain a targeted ICP list with clear qualification criteria.
• Execute a phone-driven cadence to generate meetings and opportunities.
• Multithread to book meetings and coordinate with AEs and Marketing.
• Collaborate with Marketing to refine ICPs and messaging based on feedback.
• Iterate on messaging and cadences based on performance; share learnings.

Skills

Top performer

Strong communication

Research mindset

Entrepreneurial attitude

Target-driven

Tools

Outreach

Gong

ZoomInfo

Job description

About Kernel

Agents are starting to sell, buy and operate on behalf of companies. But before an agent can close a deal, qualify an account, route a lead or assess risk, it has to answer a basic question: which company is this?

Today, that answer is messy, and no one answers it reliably. Business identity lives across CRMs, ERPs and third-party datasets full of duplicates, missing parent companies, stale addresses and incorrect enrichment. The cost shows up across the enterprise: sales teams miss revenue opportunities because they lack the right account context; operations teams take on avoidable exposure because risk signals are fragmented or wrong; and finance teams end up chasing, writing off, or defaulting on bad debt that should have been caught earlier.

Humans have worked around that mess for years. Agents cannot. They need a reliable business identity layer they can trust.

Kernel is building that layer: the business registry for agents. We issue a permanent KERN ID for every business, plus the context an agent needs to act on it. Ops, data and revenue teams at Gong, Legora, Mistral, Canva and Checkout already use Kernel on their own systems. Agents are next, and there will be far more of them.

We have raised $14M from top VCs and operators at Plaid, OpenAI, Slack and others, and we are growing 5x YoY.

Important

This is a commission-based sales role. Do not apply if you are after a position in Operations or Strategy.

The Role

This is the perfect role for either a sales-minded generalist, or a top-performing SDR/BDR.

At Kernel, we have an outbound sales motion that works, and our top performers hit their targets and get promoted fast (within 12 months).

The outbound sales team is the basis for how fast Kernel can grow, so this is a high impact and high visibility role.

To help scale the team, we’re looking for sales-minded people to come and own a book of pre-tiered accounts. Your primary mission is to generate qualified pipeline by researching, prospecting, and engaging the right companies and stakeholders.

You’ll spend most of your time leveraging Kernel’s data-driven insights to develop hyper-targeted outreach, primarily via calls (our main channel), LinkedIn DMs, and other channels. We also encourage Commercial Associates to think outside the box to generate pipeline, such as by attending/organising events or by implementing new outbound methods.

You’ll partner closely with Marketing and AEs.

What You’ll Be Doing

Target & Qualify

• Identify and research high-fit companies and decision-makers using Kernel’s data

• Build and maintain a consistently updated target list with clear qualification criteria

Outbound Prospecting

• Execute a phone-driven cadence (cold calls + voicemails) to generate meetings

• Take a strategic view of each account in your list, and multithread to get meetings booked

• Mix LinkedIn, email, and phone in multi-touch cadences

Handoff & Collaboration

• Book qualified meetings for AEs and provide detailed call notes

• Collaborate with Marketing to refine ICPs and messaging based on feedback

Metrics & Continuous Learning

• Iterate on messaging and cadences based on performance

• Share field feedback to inform product and GTM strategy

What You Bring

• We’re open to applicants who have no traditional sales experience, as long as you know that you want to work in a sales role and have excelled in whatever you have done before

• Proven success as a top performer

• Strong verbal and written communication skills

• Research-oriented mindset, you like understanding the “why now” behind prospects

• Entrepreneurial and proactive attitude; comfortable owning results

• Hard worker, and willing to go the extra mile

• Competitive, and target-driven

• Nice to have:

  • Familiarity with tools like Outreach, Gong, or ZoomInfo

  • Experience selling B2B SaaS on the phone

  • Startup experience or exposure to early-stage GTM motion

  • Interest in AI, data, or automation

This role may not be for you if you:

• Prefer slow-paced, highly structured sales environments

• Avoid cold calling or phone-heavy work

• Need rigid scripts instead of conversational selling

This role is definitely not for you if you:

• Prefer remote work (requires 4+ days a week in the London office)

• Don’t enjoy the intensity of early-stage GTM

• Have side hustles or other projects that split focus

What We Offer

We will do our best to offer you a ride of a lifetime. It will not be easy, but it will be thrilling.

• Salary: Competitive base + uncapped commission + equity. The OTE is £63k. Our commission structure includes a percentage of any closed won deal you sourced, and has accelerators for exceeding target

  • Our best performers often exceed their target by +50%, earning them 2x OTE

• 24 days holiday per year + bank holidays

• £450 Monthly Office Dinner Allowance

• 2 weeks work-from-anywhere

• Generous parental leave policy

• Pension plan

• Top-spec equipment and central London office

• Team events and dinners

• Work directly with the founders to scale the systems that power enterprise AI

• High-autonomy, high-trust environment with a small team shipping at pace

Interview Process

Stage 1 – Video call with the Talent Lead.

Stage 2 – Video call with the Hiring Manager.

Stage 3 – Case study interview (in person) with the team.

Stage 4 – Values interview with the Founders.

If there is mutual fit, we move to references and offer.