Founding Sales Engineer

Featherless AI; Raleigh (NC); On-site; USD 150,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Competitive base salary + commission

Job summary

Featherless AI is seeking a seasoned Enterprise Sales professional to close mid-market to enterprise deals in the AI infrastructure space. You will own the sales cycle from discovery to contract, tailor demos to buyers' stacks, and build compelling business cases that map to Featherless capabilities.

Collaborating with product and engineering, you will refine playbooks with the CRO, mentor BDRs, and maintain CRM hygiene in HubSpot.

Qualifications

• 3–6 years closing role in Cloud Infra, MLOps, or AI/developer tooling.
• Proven track record closing deals with technical buyers (developers, ML engineers, CTOs).
• Comfortable navigating multi-stakeholder enterprise sales cycles.
• Strong written and verbal communication—concise and credible.
• Entrepreneurial and self-driven with a data-driven pipeline approach.
• Familiar with HubSpot, Clay, Claude/ChatGPT or equivalent tools.

Responsibilities

• Run full-cycle sales across mid-market and enterprise segments.
• Lead discovery and technical demo calls tailored to buyers' stack and use case.
• Develop custom proposals and business cases mapping to Featherless capabilities.
• Negotiate and close complex, multi-stakeholder deals.
• Expand revenue within existing accounts—identify upsell opportunities.
• Use AI tools to automate research, outreach, and workflow efficiency.
• Maintain CRM hygiene in HubSpot—all activity logged and stages accurate.
• Collaborate with product and engineering to share field feedback.
• Mentor BDRs and help define what great pipeline looks like.

Skills

Enterprise sales

Technical buyer engagement

Forecasting

CRM proficiency

Self-driven

Data-driven pipeline

Tools

HubSpot

Clay

Claude/ChatGPT

Job description

About Featherless

Featherless.ai is building the world's most reliable open-model inference platform — a serverless foundation for deploying and scaling AI without infrastructure overhead.

About Featherless

Featherless.ai is building the world's most reliable open-model inference platform — a serverless foundation for deploying and scaling AI without infrastructure overhead.

Backed by AMD, Airbus Ventures, 500 Global, Kickstart Ventures, HF0 Residency, Panache Ventures, and Oakseed Ventures, we're a well-funded team of researchers and engineers on a mission to democratize AI through performance and accessibility.

Our cloud provides instant access to 40,000+ open-source AI models and the research innovations powering next-generation efficiency, reliability, and model optimization.

• Build and close a pipeline of scale-up and high-growth startup accounts
• Own deals from first contact through signed contract — discovery, demo, proposal, negotiation, close
• Build and maintain executive-level relationships with CTOs, ML leads, and infrastructure decision-makers
• Work with the CRO to refine acquisition and expansion playbooks
• Partner with BDR and DevRel on pipeline generation
• Maintain CRM rigor and deliver accurate forecasting and pipeline reporting
• Represent Featherless at industry events and conferences to generate and advance deals

Core Responsibilities

• Run full-cycle sales across mid-market and enterprise segments
• Lead high-quality discovery and technical demo calls tailored to each buyer's stack and use case
• Develop custom proposals and business cases that connect model inference needs to Featherless capabilities
• Negotiate and close complex, multi-stakeholder deals
• Expand revenue within existing accounts — identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities
• Use AI tools extensively to automate research, outreach personalization, and workflow efficiency
• Maintain clean CRM hygiene in HubSpot — all activity logged, pipeline stages accurate
• Collaborate with product and engineering to share feedback from the field
• Mentor BDRs and help define what great pipeline looks like

What You Bring

• 3–6 years in a closing role in Cloud Infrastructure, MLOps, or AI/developer tooling
• Proven track record closing deals with technical buyers (developers, ML engineers, CTOs)
• Comfortable navigating multi-stakeholder enterprise sales cycles
• Strong written and verbal communication — concise, credible, technically literate
• Entrepreneurial and self-driven — you build your own process and don't wait for a playbook
• Disciplined forecaster with clean CRM habits and a data-driven approach to pipeline management
• Familiar with HubSpot, Clay, Claude/ChatGPT or equivalent tools

Why Featherless

• Build out the AE function at a company growing in one of the fastest-moving spaces in AI
• Work directly with the CRO — your wins shape the company's trajectory
• Be part of a small, high-performing team making open weight AI accessible to everyone
• Competitive base + commission

Compensation Range: $150K - $190K