Founding BDR, AI Inference (SF)

About this role

Lavendo partners with startups and high‑growth companies to help them hire top‑tier sales, GTM, and technical talent. This role is with one of our clients; we’ll share full details about the company and interview process as we get to know you and confirm mutual fit.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

Our client is building the autonomous performance engineer the AI industry doesn't have enough of: AI agents that optimize GPU kernels so companies can run inference on open-source LLMs faster and cheaper than anyone else. Their product wins on the two numbers that matter most to engineering buyers — tokens/second and latency — and on cost, backed by GPU procurement relationships most seed-stage companies don't have access to.

They're a YC company from a recent batch, having just closed a $4M seed round led by a respected early-stage fund. The angel list is the kind you don't usually see this early: senior technical leaders from Google, OpenAI, Dropbox, and Together AI have personally put money in. If you've spent any time around inference or GPU infra, that's not a vanity signal — it's some of the most technically demanding people in the space betting on this team's approach.

Under 10 people today, real customers running production inference, and a founder who still closes every deal himself. This is about as early as 'early-stage' gets.

THE MISSION

Make it possible for any team — not just the ones with in-house GPU experts — to serve state-of-the-art open-source models in production at a fraction of the usual latency and cost. Less time hand-tuning kernels, more time shipping product.

THE OPPORTUNITY

This is a Founding BDR seat — one of the company's first two GTM hires, reporting straight to the Head of GTM & Growth. You'll own 100% of outbound from day one. No closing responsibility yet — the CEO still closes every deal — but that's temporary by design: people who perform get moved to full-cycle AE in weeks to months, not years. The company would rather promote you than hire over you.

There's no outbound playbook here. You're writing it.

Location: On-site 5 days/week in San Francisco Visa sponsorship: Open to visa transfers (OPT, H-1B transfers, etc.)

WHAT YOU'LL DO

- Own 100% of outbound prospecting — target: 8+ qualified meetings per week

- Run 80+ daily touches across email, LinkedIn, and cold calls

- Book first meetings with the people who actually feel this pain: CTOs and engineering leads at AI-native companies running production inference

- Build and continuously rewrite outbound sequences, treating your weekly reply and meeting rates as live experiments, not a report you file and forget

- Build the outbound engine and systems from scratch, not inherit someone else's

- Walk into every first meeting prepped by the Head of GTM and CEO, never cold

WHAT YOU BRING

- Time at an early-stage startup, pre-seed through Series C

- 1–3 years of full-time, 100% outbound B2B sales development experience

- Real experience selling technical products to technical buyers

- Willingness to be in the office in San Francisco 5 days a week

Nice to have:

- Experience at an inference, GPU infra or voice AI company

- A technical background (software engineering, or exposure to a technical dev-tools product) — helpful, but not required. A fast learner without an engineering degree is completely fine here

- Founding SDR or founding GTM experience at a company under 20 people

- Non-traditional paths welcome: solutions engineers or implementation folks from small startups who've done customer-facing work, or early-career AEs who want to prove themselves on outbound first

KEY SUCCESS DRIVERS

- You want to build, not just execute. The interview process is specifically designed to screen for this — if you're looking for a ready-made playbook, this isn't your seat.

- You default to high ownership and agency. This is a small team with an accelerator's DNA: move fast, take initiative, don't wait to be told.

- You're comfortable without a net. There's no established process yet. That should sound exciting, not stressful.

- You're genuinely curious about the technical problem. You don't need a CS degree, but you need to want to understand this space well enough that a skeptical engineering buyer takes you seriously in the first five minutes.

WHY JOIN?

- A YC company already beating larger, better-funded competitors on tokens/second and latency

- An investor and angel list — including senior technical leaders from Google, OpenAI, Dropbox, and Together AI — that gives you a real answer when a prospect (or your own network) asks "why should I trust this team"

- A genuinely fast path to full-cycle AE — within weeks to months, not years

- Direct access to the Head of GTM and CEO — no layers, no waiting for feedback

- $85K–$100K base, ~$140K OTE with uncapped commission — paid monthly against a weekly qualified-meetings target, not tied to lead value or deal size

- Competitive, early-stage equity

- 100% covered medical, dental, and vision for you and your dependents

- Unlimited PTO and parental leave

- Daily lunch and dinner, plus a $1,000/month housing stipend if you live within 0.5 miles of the office (Dogpatch)

INTERVIEWING PROCESS

- Intro call with the Head of GTM

- Interview with the CEO

- Onsite (half day)

- Offer

We are proud to be an equal opportunity workplace and consider all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, disability, genetic information, veteran or military status, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by law.

Similar jobs

• Founding US BDR - Agentic AI — Humaans · San Francisco
• Applied AI Engineer, Inference — Coreweave · Bellevue, WA/ San Francisco, CA/ Sunnyvale, CA
• Founding Engineer (AI) — Momentic · San Francisco
• Founding Engineer (AI/ML) — Clera · San Francisco
• AI Research Engineer, Inference — Wehrtyou · London, United Kingdom; New York, NY, United States
• Member of Technical Staff (AI Inference Engineer) — Perplexity · San Francisco
• Founding Engineer (Applied AI) — Clera · San Francisco
• Software Engineer, Inference AI/ML — Coreweave · Sunnyvale, CA / Bellevue, WA