Founding Growth Lead

We're a seed-stage stealth hardware startup based in the Bay Area building a new source of power for frontier applications, from robotics and connected edge devices to the built environment. Our technology turns everyday surfaces into power sources. We are a small, focused team: an exited founder, NASA engineers, and materials scientists who have spent their careers turning emerging technology into products and scaling the operations behind them. Our first products are already in customers' hands. Who we hire Most of what we do has not been done before. The people who do well here have built something first of its kind, solved a problem others gave up on, or have patents, publications, or shipped products they can point to. They hold a high standard for their own work and expect it from the people around them. The role This is our first dedicated commercial hire. The founders carry every account personally today, and this role takes that over: getting our product designed into other companies' products, from first contact to production purchase order. This role has three main parts. Pipeline creation: partners and channels, our conference program, converting the engineers already buying our evaluation parts, and outbound. Design-in execution: qualify, run the paid pilot, secure a dated slot on the customer's build schedule, negotiate terms, close, and expand. Commercial infrastructure: the CRM, the forecast, the collateral, and the quoting process, none of which exist in deliberate form today. You will work to the customer's NPI schedule: getting our part into their EVT build, surviving DVT, and holding the position through PVT and into mass production. That means managing against their gate reviews, BOM freeze dates, and program managers, and knowing what must be true at each stage for our part to still be in the design at the next one. Much of what you will sell does not fully exist yet, so part of the job is working out what customers will buy and informing the rest of us. Expect the scope to grow and the work six months in to differ from this description. Partner and channel development. Distributors, co-selling agreements, and complementary suppliers. Most of our current pipeline arrived through partners and introductions rather than direct outreach, which makes this the highest-yield work available to the role. Conference program. Choose the shows, book meetings in advance rather than relying on booth traffic, run the follow-up, and measure qualified opportunities produced per event. Outbound and inbound conversion. Build the target account list and run the outreach yourself. Engineers already buy our evaluation parts through catalog and online channels, so work out which of those purchases represent real design activity. EVT, DVT, and PVT. Secure a dated position in the customer's evaluation build, then carry our part through validation and into production. Track their gate criteria, BOM freeze dates, and design reviews, run the working cadence with their engineering and program teams, and elevate early when the slot is at risk. Pilots and commercial terms. Qualify hard before committing capacity, then structure paid pilots with deliverables and dates tied to the customer's program schedule. Negotiate price-volume agreements, NRE, warranty, and supply commitments with the Hardware Product Manager, so that what we sign matches what we can deliver. Account ownership and expansion. Own the relationship across engineering, procurement, and program teams, pursue follow-on programs at accounts already won, and return customer requirements on specification, form factor, and price to product and engineering. Commercial infrastructure CRM and forecasting. Choose and run the CRM and outreach stack, define the pipeline stages and the evidence required to advance an opportunity, and produce the pipeline and revenue reporting that goes to leadership and the board. Commercial collateral. Application briefs, one-pagers, case studies, and customer decks built from the Hardware Product Manager's datasheets and reference designs, plus a current view of the alternatives customers weigh us against. Quoting and proposals. Templates and process for quotes, pilot statements of work, and pricing proposals, so that a serious request is answered in days. What you'll bring Seven (7) or more years selling a physical product to OEM customers, whether components, modules, or subsystems, with design wins you can describe in detail: how the part was selected, what nearly stopped it, and how the ramp went. You have sold into a hardware development program, not simply to a hardware company. You know what EVT, DVT, and PVT mean for a supplier, what a BOM freeze does to your window, and what has to be true to still be in the design at the next gate review. Long cycles. Opportunities that ran twelve months or more to purchase order, held together through customer reorganizations and schedule slips, and forecast honestly throughout. Short-cycle software sales experience alone does not transfer. Self-sufficiency. You will build the pipeline, the CRM, the collateral, and the quotes yourself. No marketing or sales operations sits behind you, and the role will change as the company does. BS or MS in Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science, Physics, or a related field. Strong signals Revenue produced through distributors, manufacturer's representatives, co-selling agreements, or referral relationships. Bill-of-materials economics: cost-down expectations, purchase price variance, and volume tiers, plus supply agreements negotiated with corporate procurement. Energy harvesting, power management, battery, or photovoltaics background. Exposure to customer qualification and supplier audits. Opening a new segment or geography. Implementing a CRM and outreach stack from scratch. Equity package Workspace setup stipend Location and travel This role is in-office in Palo Alto 4-5 days per week, with approximately 25% travel, including international trips and a regular conference schedule. Even if you do not meet all of the qualifications, we still encourage you to apply, as we are growing fast and hire opportunistically. We are committed to providing an environment of mutual respect where equal employment opportunities are available to all applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy (including childbirth and related medical conditions), national origin, age, physical and mental disability, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information (including characteristics and testing), military and veteran status, and any other characteristic protected by applicable law. We believe that diversity and inclusion among our employees is critical to our success as a company, and we seek to recruit, develop and retain the most talented people from a diverse candidate pool. Selection for employment is decided on the basis of qualifications, merit, and business need. #J-18808-Ljbffr