Customer Engagement Lead

About the Role

We're an early-stage startup running a portfolio of incubator experiments, and we are hiring someone whose job is to go find the people willing to try what we're building then bring back what they actually think. The job is customer discovery: go out, talk to people, learn their real problems. You're not boxed in by what we've already built, if conversations point to a better opportunity than our current roadmap, we want you chasing that too.

What You'll Do

• Run customer discovery, proactively reach out to and talk with potential partners and prospective customers, and go deep on their real problems.
• Get in front of early design partners to understand their real workflow and problems led by conversation, not a deployment engagement.
• Identify, set up, and own your own outreach and campaign stack (e.g., LinkedIn Sales Navigator) to run organized.
• Dig into prospects' real pain points through conversation and hands-on use, not a script.
• Bring findings back to the team and hand off qualified conversations.
• Show up in the community conferences, meetups, founder circles and be the one who gets people talking.
• Own this end-to-end with minimal hand-holding; success is finding, validating, and often technically proving out design partners largely on your own.

What You'll Bring

• Early-stage GTM, customer development, or founding sales experience.
• A background in product, FDE solutions, consulting, or business development.
• A track record of helping sell or shape technical products.
• Hands-on experience running pilots, design partnerships, or zero-to-one projects.
• A history of working closely with engineers and product teams.
• Time spent as an early startup employee or founder.
• A self-directed track record of creating or leading mechanisms and activities that start discussions or drive engagement around an early-stage idea, initiative, or product.
• Comfort running discovery conversations independently — real curiosity about people's problems, not a script.
• Enough technical fluency in GenAI development to bring technical conversations to a real conclusion, understanding a contact's problem deeply and communicating our ideas clearly enough to start a deeper conversation.
• A demonstrated ability to drive engagement and discussion, not just talk at people.
• Real comfort with ambiguity and high agency to own how you work – no playbook, no big support structure.
• A track record of owning outreach independently, genuinely fine with your success being on you.

Especially Excited If You...

• Have owned and driven meaningful engagement with prospects at an AI startup.
• Have some exposure to AI-native products.
• Can put together quick mocks, demos, or lightweight prototypes to make a use case tangible — a real plus, not a requirement.
• Were or are part of a venture capital/private equity club or similar program in school.
• Hold an advanced STEM degree or similar advanced degree.

This Role Is Not

• A traditional sales or BDR role runs off a defined playbook and target list.
• An enterprise pre-sales / solutions-engineering role built around a big-platform sales cycle.
• A generalist marketing role without direct 1:1 outreach or hands-on building experience.

Compensation & Location

Base salary range: $130,000–$240,000, depending on experience

Based in New York City.