Sales Development Representative

Gradient Labs; New York (NY); Hybrid; USD 90,000 - 110,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Private medical & dental insurance

25 days paid time off

Team socials and offsites

Hybrid working - NYC office, weekly in

Job summary

Gradient Labs is building an AI-powered customer operations platform for financial services. We are a fast-growing startup in New York, collaborating with leading banks and fintechs to eliminate manual work across support and back-office tasks.

As a Sales Development Representative, you’ll own the top of the funnel across the US, conducting strategic account research, and crafting personalised outreach to engage senior buyers at regulated institutions.

Qualifications

• 1–3 years of professional experience; SDR/BDR in B2B SaaS is a plus.
• Willingness to work in a fast-moving startup environment.
• Ability to conduct strategic account research and multi-channel outreach.

Responsibilities

• Pipeline generation: own the top of the funnel and set qualified meetings.
• Strategic account research with Enterprise AEs across banking and fintech sectors.
• Multi-channel prospecting: personalized emails, calls, and LinkedIn.
• Test and iterate messaging strategies and sequences.
• Leverage AI-powered workflows for research and enrichment.
• Make first impressions as Gradient Labs’ trusted advisor.
• Develop product and market expertise for fintech AI customer ops.
• Provide cross-functional feedback to Marketing, Sales, and Product.
• Build sales fundamentals from discovery to stakeholder mapping.

Skills

SDR/BDR experience

Goal orientation

Communication skills

Initiative & adaptability

Job description

At Gradient Labs, we're building the AI customer operations platform for financial services.

Founded in 2023, we now work with some of the biggest names in banking and fintech. Our platform runs specialist agents, purpose-built for financial services, to eliminate manual work across customer support and back-office operations. Together, they give product and operations teams the visibility and control to trust every outcome.

We're a team of builders from companies like Google, Braze, Klaviyo, and Zendesk. If you're excited to tackle some of the hardest problems in AI and help shape the future of customer operations, we'd love to hear from you.

How you’ll make an impact

As a Sales Development Representative, you'll play a critical role in driving our expansion across the US. You'll own the top of our sales funnel, engaging with prospects across the financial services sector and helping them understand the value of our AI agent through creative, well-researched, and highly personalised outreach.

• Pipeline generation: own the top of the funnel and turn cold accounts into qualified meetings for our Enterprise AEs. This is the core of the role, and you'll take the grind head on.

• Strategic account research: partner with Enterprise AEs to research and prioritise high-conviction accounts across banking, fintech, lending, and insurance, and map the many stakeholders involved in an enterprise deal.

• Multi-channel prospecting: write your own messaging and generate pipeline through cold calling, personalised email, and LinkedIn outreach that lands with senior buyers at risk-averse, highly regulated institutions.

• Test and iterate: come up with creative, strategic angles, run experiments on messaging and sequences, and double down on what works.

• AI-powered workflows: operate and tune tools for research, enrichment, sequencing, and signal monitoring so your time goes to the highest-value interactions.

• First impressions: act as the first human touch from Gradient Labs, representing us as a trusted advisor from the opening message.

• Product and market expertise: build real depth in our product, the financial services market, and where AI in customer operations is heading.

• Cross-functional impact: feed sharp field signal back to Marketing, Sales, and Product to compound targeting, messaging, and conversion.

• The craft of sales: build the skills that take you from SDR to top-performing AE, from discovery to objection handling to stakeholder mapping.

What you’ll bring

• You have around 1-3 years of professional experience. SDR/BDR experience at a B2B SaaS company is a plus, but we're just as excited by people moving into sales from consulting, banking, finance, or VC. You don't need a background in AI or financial services.

• You set ambitious goals and hit them, and you're happy doing the hard thing again and again. That discipline might come from competitive sport, a demanding early career, or a quota you've already carried.

• You ask insightful questions, listen well, read the room, and stay close to the AI category and the financial services market.

• You take initiative without being asked, take clear direction and run with it, and do well in a fast-moving startup.

• You look for feedback every day, act on it fast, and treat every week as a chance to get sharper.

• You raise the bar on quota, progression, and the people around you.

Why join Gradient Labs?

This is a unique chance to be part of a team working with cutting-edge technology to reshape how businesses will operate in the future. Over the next 10 years, every company will need to embrace AI-powered operations to stay competitive, and this role puts you right in the middle of that transformation.

You’ll tackle challenging and new problems, work with some of the most exciting brands across different industries, and be surrounded by a passionate, smart team that’s driven to build something groundbreaking.

Benefits & Logistics

• We’re still at early stages of building out our compensation bandings, whilst we continue to shape this, we’re open to chatting with people who have a range of salary requirements

  • $90,000 - $110,000 OTE & meaningful equity

• Private medical & dental insurance

• 25 days paid time off

• Team socials and offsites

• Flexible working - we have an office in New York City and a hybrid working approach, ideally you'd be able to come into the office once per week