Technical Business Development Representative

Company Intro

At Sift, we’re redefining how modern machines are built, tested, and operated. Our platform gives engineers real-time observability over high-frequency telemetry, eliminating bottlenecks and enabling faster, more reliable development.

Sift was born from our work at SpaceX on Dragon, Falcon, Starlink, and Starship—where scaling telemetry, debugging flight systems, and ensuring mission reliability demanded new infrastructure. Founded by a team from SpaceX, Google, and Palantir, Sift is built for mission-critical systems where precision and scalability are non-negotiable.

Description

In this role, you’ll operate on the front lines of customer engagement to identify the right accounts, engage technical buyers at events and online, and open high-value conversations that lead to pipeline.

This isn’t a high-volume outbound sales call role. It’s a more technical role about research, context, and credibility. You’ll be researching programs, tracking industry signals, attending events, and speaking directly with engineers who are building some of the world’s most complex machines, from autonomous defense platforms to next-gen spacecraft.

Success requires curiosity, technical fluency, and the ability to navigate ambiguity. You’ll work directly with engineers, operators, and program managers tackling problems that matter, where performance, safety, and clarity define the mission.

This role is well suited for someone with experience in high-stakes environments such as defense or aerospace programs, technical capture, strategic sourcing, or other customer-facing roles where discipline, initiative, and cross-functional leadership are essential.

What You’ll Do

• Own a portfolio of accounts and opportunities in which you’ll bring discipline and urgency to every step to drive awareness and ultimately engagement, from first touch to handoff to sales demo.

• Travel to events to represent Sift in the field to engage directly with early-stage prospects. You’ll initiate conversations with technical teams, gather market intelligence, and identify high-potential accounts.

• Map complex orgs: Understand decision-making structures, program timelines, and technical requirements across engineering, procurement, and program leadership.

• Prospect and qualify strategically: Target companies and stakeholders working in frontier industries, including aerospace, defense, and industrial automation. Use intelligence, creativity, and tenacity to earn trust and start meaningful conversations.

• Run discovery like an engineer: Go beyond surface-level qualification. Dig deep into technical workflows, system bottlenecks, safety protocols, and organizational goals. Translate those into actionable paths to value.

• Develop opportunities by identifying where Sift’s platform can accelerate decision-making, reduce downtime, or improve safety. Leverage customer success stories, hands-on pilots, and prototypes.

• Contribute to the mission: You’ll support initiatives at field events such as events and dinners to elevate Sift’s role in the market.

The Skillset You'll Bring

• Technical curiosity and confidence in speaking with engineers, program leads, and ops teams.

• 1–3 years in a high-performance, customer-facing environment such as tech B2B sales, consulting, military, program or capture management, research analysis, or technical sourcing.

• Demonstrated success navigating complex buying processes, ideally in government, defense, or advanced manufacturing.

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to distill complexity into clear, actionable insight.

• A track record of ownership and follow-through in ambiguous, high-autonomy environments.

• Deep interest in hard tech, national security, advanced engineering, or infrastructure.

Location

You must be willing and able to work from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area and be onsite Monday through Thursday due to the nature and business needs of the role.

Salary range: $100,000 - $150,000 per year. Plus equity and benefits.