Founding Head of Sales

Cyborg NYC Hybrid · Full-Time · Reports to CEO About Cyborg Cyborg is building CyborgDB, a vector database for teams that need secure, scalable retrieval over sensitive data. CyborgDB runs search over encrypted data, scales on disk instead of relying on RAM-heavy architectures, and gives every tenant cryptographic isolation. Production AI is changing what infrastructure teams need from vector search, especially when the data is sensitive, regulated, or operationally critical. We are an early‑stage company, mostly based in New York City. We have paying customers in production, an NVIDIA partnership in flight, and 16 patents. We are pre-1.0, and the product is still changing. We're now looking for our first sales leader. The Role We are hiring a Founding Head of Sales to build Cyborg’s enterprise revenue engine from the ground up. This is not a role for someone who wants to inherit a team, a polished playbook, or a mature pipeline. It is a zero-to-one sales leadership role for a technical infrastructure product whose market is still being defined. You will own revenue generation from qualified opportunity through closed‑won, help validate the first repeatable sales motion, and build the systems, process, and eventually the team that scale it. You should be comfortable selling deeply technical products to infrastructure, security, data, platform, and AI teams. You should also be comfortable operating without the machinery of a later‑stage company. Your work will center on five things: 1. Revenue generation You will own Cyborg’s first revenue targets. That means leading qualification, discovery, technical evaluation, business‑case development, procurement, negotiation, and closed‑won execution across enterprise accounts. Our likely early buyers are in markets where retrieval over sensitive data matters: healthcare, financial services, government, defense, AI infrastructure, and other regulated or operationally critical environments. You should be able to run complex enterprise sales cycles with multiple technical and business stakeholders, including security, infrastructure, platform engineering, data, AI, procurement, and executive buyers. 2. Sales motion and operating discipline You will design the sales motion that turns early customer traction into a repeatable revenue engine. That includes defining how we qualify accounts, run discovery, structure proofs of value, manage technical evaluations, forecast pipeline, and drive deals to close. You will help decide what “qualified” means for Cyborg. You will define the stages that actually predict deal progression. You will build the proof‑of‑value motion for regulated technical buyers. You will help us understand which accounts are worth pursuing, which are not, and why. We care about rigor, but not theater. CRM hygiene, forecasting, and funnel metrics matter because they improve judgment and make the company easier to run, not because dashboards are the goal. You will operationalize our early GTM stack, including Attio, Hunter, and The Org, into a disciplined process the CEO and leadership team can trust. 3. Complex technical selling You will lead sales cycles for a product that requires technical credibility. CyborgDB is not a point solution bought on a whim. Buyers need to understand how encrypted vector search works, how it fits into their infrastructure, what changes in their architecture, and what tradeoffs they are making. You should be able to talk about AI infrastructure, security, data systems, compliance, deployment constraints, and proof‑of‑concept design without relying on a sales engineer for every conversation. You do not need to be an engineer. But you do need to be fluent enough to earn trust with technical buyers and precise enough to avoid overselling what a pre‑1.0 product can do. 4. Commercial strategy and partnerships You will help shape Cyborg’s commercial model. Through customer conversations, deal cycles, objections, procurement processes, and deployment patterns, you will help refine our pricing, packaging, licensing, contract terms, expansion motion, and renewal strategy. You will also help turn strategic relationships into measurable pipeline. Cyborg is working with NVIDIA, cloud providers, and ecosystem partners. Your job will be to help identify where those relationships can become real distribution, including co‑sell motions, joint enablement, cloud marketplace opportunities, channel partnerships, and account-level leverage. Partnerships are only useful if they create commercial motion. You will help make that motion real. 5. Customer feedback and team building You will be one of the clearest voices of the customer inside the company. You will bring feedback from sales cycles, pilots, security reviews, onboarding, objections, lost deals, and procurement into product and company discussions. That feedback should shape our roadmap, messaging, qualification, pricing, and product priorities. As the motion becomes repeatable, you will hire and lead the next generation of GTM talent, including account executives, sales engineers, and revenue operations support. But this is not a “hire first, sell later” role. In the beginning, you will sell. Then you will build. Who You’ll Work With You will work closely with: The CEO on revenue strategy, enterprise selling, forecasting, partnerships, and company direction The PM on customer feedback, ICP development, proof‑of‑value design, and product input The founding marketing lead on ICP, messaging, account targeting, field strategy, and pipeline development You will sit in customer conversations, lead sales calls, shape outbound strategy, participate in technical evaluations, and help define how Cyborg is sold. In the near term, the GTM team will be small and highly hands‑on. Over time, the goal is a scalable revenue engine where marketing earns attention, sales converts it, and customer learning improves the product. In Your First 90 Days, You Will: Build a clear view of Cyborg’s current pipeline, active opportunities, customers, partners, and commercial assumptions Define the first version of our enterprise sales stages, qualification criteria, forecasting model, and weekly pipeline review process Create an initial ICP‑fit account list with the CEO, PM, VP of Sales‑adjacent stakeholders, and founding marketing lead Lead discovery and qualification for high‑priority enterprise opportunities Design the first repeatable proof‑of‑value motion for regulated technical buyers Draft and test outbound messaging for a narrow set of technical accounts Identify the highest‑leverage partnership and co‑sell opportunities with NVIDIA, cloud providers, and ecosystem partners Create the initial operating rhythm for pipeline hygiene, conversion analysis, forecasting, and deal review You may be a fit if you: Have 7–12 years of experience selling deeply technical products such as security software, data infrastructure, developer tools, or AI infrastructure Have helped scale an enterprise technology company from early commercial traction to meaningful ARR Have been an early or founding sales hire, founding AE, first sales leader, or full‑stack GTM operator Can carry a quota while building the system underneath you Have designed sales motions, qualification methods, proof‑of‑value processes, and operating discipline — not just executed someone else’s playbook Can engage technical stakeholders on architecture, security, infrastructure, data systems, and AI without pretending to be an engineer Understand regulated or compliance‑driven buying processes, including areas such as HIPAA, PCI‑DSS, FedRAMP, GDPR, or similar frameworks Know how to build business cases, navigate security reviews, manage pilots, and drive complex deals to signature Are comfortable being honest about a pre‑1.0 product Can work closely with founders, product, and marketing without creating silos Have familiarity with NVIDIA, cloud marketplaces, hyperscalers, or the broader AI infrastructure ecosystem Are based in New York City or willing to spend meaningful time here Are willing to travel for customer meetings, partner meetings, and industry events as needed Compensation & Logistics Competitive base salary plus meaningful equity. NYC is strongly preferred. We work hybrid on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Remote will be considered for the right candidate. #J-18808-Ljbffr Cyborg