Sales Principal

The context

Beacon builds AI products for state transportation agencies: systems that make sense of the millions of engineering documents, construction records, and operational files agencies have accumulated over decades. We have live deployments, agency references who will take the call, and a state commissioner who recommends us by name.

What we don't have is sales coverage. One person handles it today alongside everything else, so most states haven't heard from us.

That's an unusual combination: a proven product, no entrenched competitor, a buyer list short enough to fit on one page, and very little pipeline.

If you sell technology to public agencies, you know how rarely those things line up. More often it's a mature product, a market that's already been called on, and the same accounts everyone in your category is calling on.

The role

Sales Principal is a senior individual-contributor position. This will be our first hire that's solely focused on selling. The role does not require people management, but could evolve to include that over time. As a Sales Principal you will:

• Open agencies where we have nothing. You will be pointed at the agencies where we haven't had any real conversation yet.
• Create your own pipeline. There is no SDR team or robust marketing engine churning out qualified leads. You will have a product that demos extremely well, results you can cite, and a group of senior advisors, including former state DOT directors, who will make introductions whenever they can.
• Close it, and hand it off. The work you sell is delivered by the rest of the team. You won't be the project manager and won't be the agency's day-to-day contact once the work starts.
• Build the systems, not just the pipeline. Jim, our founder and CEO, still carries deals and will keep doing that in a significant way. You'll have pro-level AI tooling and a team that builds with it every day, and we expect you to use both: to qualify faster, to keep records current without losing an evening to data entry, to turn what worked on one call into something the next person can run. Your selling time and Jim's should both go further because of what you build. You should rely on an expert team to give you ideas, support and collaboration, but you'll be expected to build it yourself.
• Sell a shaped outcome, not a SKU. What an agency buys is assembled from our platform to fit the problem they actually have, which means you'll be scoping in the room, and you'll need judgment about what we should and shouldn't take on.
• Work the procurement reality. Public cycles run six to twelve months at best. You know what a co-op vehicle is, what a sole-source justification has to survive, how a pilot becomes production, and why the path is sometimes a prime's change order rather than our own bid.
• Carry the whole conversation. Our buyers include chief engineers, CIOs, and commissioners. You'll face hard questions about AI, data handling, and what happens to an agency's documents. You don't have to be a technologist, but you do need to be comfortable with the technology and interested in using it on your own work.
• Tell us what you're hearing. Every lost deal and every “not yet” is product feedback, and you sit close enough to the development team that it can change what we build.

Your background

You have sold complex, considered purchases to public agencies, and you closed them yourself. There are two common ways people come by that, and we're open to both:

1. Technology sales into public agencies. You've been at an ITS, software, hardware, or SaaS company selling to DOTs, transit agencies, cities, or states. You know how a technology purchase gets through an agency's IT organization, how a pilot converts, and how to keep a deal alive across a budget cycle. On paper this is the closest match to the job.
2. Business development at an AEC or consulting firm serving those agencies. You've created demand rather than waiting on RFPs, you have standing in the professional community, and you can point to what you closed. If this is your background, read the handoff section below carefully. It's the part of this job most likely to be different from what you're used to.

Experience working inside an agency, on either path, is a major plus, but isn't a requirement.

What doesn't work is a strong seller with no public-sector track record. The cycles, the money, and the politics are different enough and we don't have the bandwidth to teach that for our first hire.

What we're looking for

• A closing record in the public sector. Deals you personally ran to signature, at DOTs, transit agencies, or comparable government buyers. If the large majority of what you've sold went to private-sector clients, this isn't the right fit.
• Self-generated pipeline. Tell us about deals that existed because you made them exist. If your best stories start with a lead that arrived in your queue, we're probably not a fit.
• Multi-state reach. You have real depth in one or more states and know how to get to the right person in the next one.
• Appetite for building your own leverage. We'd rather you spend a week automating something than a month repeating it.
• Comfort selling something that isn't finished. The product is real and in production, and it is also early. Some of what you sell will be shaped in the conversation.
• Comfort with a startup. This will look risky to some people. We'd rather you find that exciting than tolerable.
• Strong references.

On the handoff

What this role is not

• Not a catalog sale. There are SKUs, but you need to assemble them in intelligent ways to deliver real value.
• Not a seller-doer role. As described above.
• Not a people-management role, at least not at the start, and not as a condition of seniority.

How success is measured

Here's what we'll actually look at.

• Months 1 to 3 are a ramp. You'll learn the products well enough to demo them yourself, sit alongside delivery on live engagements so you know what we can honestly promise, and map your relationships against what Beacon can do for them.
• Six months is the target for first revenue in a new state. Between procurement cycles, budget calendars, and post-election turnover, we know that nobody will close a new DOT in ninety days.
• By month 6: meaningful qualified pipeline in states where Beacon had no presence when you started, and at least one agency in an active procurement conversation.
• By month 12: closed business at agencies that weren't clients before you arrived, and a pipeline a reasonable person could forecast from.
• What we don't count: revenue under management. Yours is what you opened and how cleanly you handed it over.

Career growth

This is a new role and you'd be the first sales hire. Beacon's commercial motion is one person today, and whoever joins will be part of the definition of Beacon as a company.

• A function to build. If you want to lead a sales team, the sequence is: prove it yourself, then hire under it. We'd rather grow that leader out of this seat than recruit one over it.
• Bigger hunts, not more headcount. Our contracts range from pilots to multi-year, multi-million-dollar platform engagements. Your ceiling is the size and durability of what you open.
• Proximity. We're small. Senior people who join now sit in on pricing, market selection, and strategy because there's no layer between you and the leadership team.
• Economic upside. Everyone full-time holds stock options, and equity grows with responsibility rather than tenure.

Compensation and logistics

• Competitive base plus incentive compensation, weighted toward closing and structured so a realistic public-sector cycle doesn't punish you in year one. Every full-time member of the team also holds stock options.
• Pro-level subscriptions to the AI tools you'll use daily.
• Fully remote, with an allowance for home office expenses.
• Significant travel. Agencies, conferences, and the events where this market actually gets sold. We also hold in-person team sessions roughly twice a year, typically in New York or Atlanta.
• Full-time.