Founding Sales Lead

Antler; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 190,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Experience selling developer tools

AI/robotics ecosystem relationships

Technical fluency with APIs & ML workfl

Job summary

Lucky Robots is seeking a Founding Sales Lead in the San Francisco Bay Area to own the full sales cycle, from prospecting to closing. This is a hands-on, founder-level role building the sales function from scratch and translating complex technology into compelling business value.

Expect frequent travel to conferences and events, a growing pipeline with robotics firms and AI labs, and shaping messaging, pricing, and pilots as the company scales.

Qualifications

• Proven track record of selling and closing complex or technical products.
• Ability to sell to founders, CTOs, engineering leaders, researchers, and roboticists.
• Excellent at translating technical products into clear customer value.
• Willing to attend frequent conferences and in-person events.
• Able to build a sales function from scratch at an early-stage startup.
• Based in the SF Bay Area.

Responsibilities

• Own sales end-to-end: prospecting, qualification, demos, pilots, negotiation, and closing.
• Build and manage a strong pipeline of robotics companies and AI labs.
• Spend significant time at conferences, meetups, demos, and industry events.
• Develop a deep personal network across robotics.
• Work with founders and engineers to translate capabilities into business value.
• Design our sales process, messaging, CRM discipline, and go-to-market playbook.
• Bring customer feedback into the company and help shape product priorities, pricing.
• Hustle for every opportunity; hands-on role.

Skills

Complex product sales

Selling to technical buyers

Networking

Public speaking / demos

Independent / entrepreneurial

Value articulation

Persistence & initiative

SF Bay Area based

Tools

CRM software

Job description

About Lucky Robots

We build Lucky Engine — a simulation engine purpose-built for robotics teams. Customers bring their robot, policy, task, and environment; Lucky generates high-quality training data, evaluations, and simulated episodes that help robots learn faster while reducing reliance on expensive physical data collection.

We’re looking for a Founding Sales Lead to be our first dedicated sales hire and turn early customer demand into a repeatable sales motion. You’ll be a team of one to start, owning everything from finding and reaching out to prospects to demos, pilots, negotiation, and closing. You’ll sell directly to robotics companies and frontier AI labs, build deep relationships across the industry, and help establish Lucky Robots as a core part of the robotics development stack.

Responsibilities

• Own sales end-to-end: prospecting, qualification, demos, pilots, negotiation, and closing.
• Build and manage a strong pipeline of robotics companies, AI labs, and other teams developing physical AI.
• Spend significant time in the field at robotics conferences, meetups, demos, dinners, and industry events.
• Develop a deep personal network across robotics and become a trusted, visible member of the community.
• Work directly with founders and engineers to understand customer problems and turn technical capabilities into compelling business value.
• Design our sales process, messaging, CRM discipline, and repeatable go-to-market playbook from the ground up.
• Bring customer feedback into the company and help shape product priorities, packaging, and pricing.
• Hustle for every opportunity. This is a hands-on role, not a job for someone waiting for inbound leads or a large sales team.

Qualifications

• A strong track record of selling and closing complex or technical products.
• Comfortable selling to technical buyers, including founders, CTOs, engineering leaders, researchers, and roboticists.
• A natural relationship builder who genuinely enjoys networking and wants to build one of the strongest personal networks in robotics.
• Willing and excited to attend frequent conferences, meetups, dinners, customer visits, and other in-person events.
• Able to operate independently and build a sales function from scratch at an early-stage startup.
• Excellent at translating technical products into clear, credible customer value.
• Persistent, resourceful, and highly proactive — the kind of person who finds a way to get in the room.
• Based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bonus

• Experience selling developer tools, AI infrastructure, simulation software, or robotics products.
• Existing relationships within the robotics, AI, or industrial automation ecosystem.
• Technical fluency — you can understand APIs, machine-learning workflows, robot policies, or simulation environments well enough to earn engineers’ trust.
• Experience structuring pilots and expanding them into meaningful enterprise contracts.
• Experience hiring and managing an early sales team.

Why Lucky Robots

• Sell a product addressing one of the biggest bottlenecks in robotics: generating enough high-quality data to train and evaluate intelligent machines.
• Join at the point where early customer traction is becoming a repeatable commercial opportunity.
• Build the sales function, industry network, and go-to-market strategy from the ground floor.
• Work directly with founders and engineers — no layers, no bureaucracy, and substantial ownership over how we grow.
• Spend your time with some of the most ambitious robotics teams in the world.