Founding Sales Development Representative

Why we exist

The components inside power transformers that keep the grid stable. The pressure gauges and sensors monitoring industrial processes from chemical plants to water systems. The optical sensors that guide automated production lines. The hydraulic valves driving machine tools and heavy machinery. The things that make the world around us move and function are built by industrial manufacturers most people have never heard of, on decades of accumulated expertise.

That expertise is the constraint. Tens of thousands of products, dozens of markets, and a handful of experts who hold it all together. That doesn't scale. And everyone knows it.

When a customer asks which product fits their case, the answer lives in expert heads, legacy PIM systems, and documents nobody has read since 2014. Sales engineers spend their weeks answering the same questions. Markets nobody has time for stay underserved. Manufacturers are forced to trade off growth against service quality, new customers against existing ones, breadth against depth.

Originating at the Technical University of Munich, we started nexwise to resolve this constraint – AI infrastructure that makes deep product expertise accessible across every team, channel, and customer interaction – in any market, any language. Our first agents walk customers through complex industrial catalogues to the right product, reliably. The same layer goes on to enable partners and power the workflows behind technical sales, after-sales, and product marketing.

We're already deployed with leading manufacturers. 42CAP led our pre-seed, joined by the CDTM venture fund, alongside operators and owners from industry as well as the founders of ProGlove, hybris, and Signavio. Eight people, building from Munich, solving for global industry. The companies pulling for us are large engineering manufacturers – Mittelstand, many of them more than a century old, mostly DACH. The market is large, rewards patience, and just starting to take this seriously – which is exciting.

What you'd be doing

You'd own the top of our funnel. Today Mathis (co-founder and CCO) runs outbound between everything else. That's the wrong allocation of his time and is capping pipeline. You'd take it over and turn it into something repeatable.

The mechanics:

• Build prospect lists from our ICP – engineering manufacturers in DACH with revenues between € 250m and € 5b
• Reach into technical sales, marketing, service, digital CX, and L&D leadership inside those accounts
• Run multi-channel outbound – LinkedIn, email, phone – with sequences you draft, ship, measure, and iterate
• Qualify discovery conversations against the criteria we've defined, and keep raising the bar on what a qualified meeting actually looks like
• Hand opportunities cleanly to Mathis, with context that travels
• Sit on customer meetings, watch how cycles develop, let what you learn flow back into how you prospect

SDR is the entry, not the destination. Within 12-18 months we expect you to be running your own cycles end-to-end as a Founding Account Executive – sourcing, discovery, qualification, scoping, executive buyer meetings, close.

How we sell

We seek PULL. Discovery is a structured diagnostic conversation where the prospect surfaces their constraint and concludes – on their own – that solving it is worth their time. We don't push a product on people who aren’t ready yet. If the diagnostic doesn't land, we walk away rather than chase. This is harder than push selling and requires actual curiosity about our customer's worlds. It is also why our cycles, when they go forward, tend to stay clean.

What we have figured out:

• A clear ICP hypothesis we've tested across dozens of prospects
• Reference customers live in production with measurable impact
• A qualification framework with explicit exit criteria between stages
• A sales philosophy we're consistent about

What we haven't:

• Sequences that work at scale
• A channel mix that's empirically correct
• A repeatable opener for cold calls into Mittelstand technical buyers
• A clean read on which trigger events actually predict a buying conversation
• Internal benchmarks for what good looks like at each stage

You wouldn't be executing a playbook. You'd be co-building one with Mathis. That's the offer, and it's also the catch – if you want a system that's already running, this isn't the right role.

Who we're looking for

Resumes get you considered. Wiring gets you hired.

On paper

• 1-2 years in a B2B sales role with cold outbound as a core activity
• Experience with sales cycles that span months, not weeks
• A track record of being curious about the buyer's problem, not just the next meeting
• Native German, fluent English
• Based in Munich or Hamburg

It's a plus if you have

• Industrial, manufacturing, or engineering-adjacent exposure
• Worked in an early-stage startup before
• Studied or worked in something that required learning from primary sources – engineering, hard sciences, anything that built the muscle of needing to understand how things actually work rather than what the playbook says

Anti-patterns we'd skip

• Pure inbound or classic SaaS SDR backgrounds with no outbound proof
• Long tenure in transactional B2C or short-cycle B2B
• Industries where the standard motion is high-volume, low-quality outreach

The wiring we screen for

• Curiosity that actually drives your outreach – you want to understand what's happening on the other side of the call, not just book it
• Grit that survives quiet weeks – when nothing has come back and the numbers haven't moved, you still run the reps
• Honesty over people-pleasing – you name disagreement when you see it, including with prospects, including with us
• Demand-side bias – you count good weeks by which conversations were worth having, not how many were booked
• Wired to learn the whole job – you pay attention to what happens after the meeting gets booked, because that's where the cycle actually plays out

How we work

• Time for building. Tuesdays and Thursdays are kept free of internal meetings – protected for outbound and customer work. We call this Autobahn.
• Agency. Decisions sit close to the work. You set your own pace and approach, and you don't wait for permission.
• Transparency. Roadmap, priorities, and the numbers behind the business are open internally. If you're missing context, you ask.
• AI as leverage. We use AI across research, list-building, drafting, and analysis. But thinking stays human – what gets sent, what gets believed, what we act on.

How we set you up

You won't have to figure out industrial enterprise sales alone. You'll work directly with Dave Rubinstein – a coach who's spent his career handling, winning, and developing Fortune 20 accounts. Weekly sessions in the first months, continuing as the role grows. The bet is that the right coach in your first year with us compounds across your career.

Compensation

• Base: € 60-70k (80% of OTE)
• Variable: 20% of base, tied to Sales Qualified Opportunities – discovery meetings that pass our qualification criteria and become real opportunities
• Equity: 0.25-0.5% (VSOP)

We don't pay per meeting booked. We pay for opportunities the founders accept after the meeting happens. That's an opinionated choice.

The process

Please apply only if you fit the Who we're looking for criteria above. Skipping mismatches saves time on both sides.

Two to three weeks end-to-end, depending on calendars.

1. Application via the form below – we respond within 3 business days.
2. Screening call (20 min, video) – basics, motivation, language and location fit.
3. Craft interview (60 min, video) with Mathis, our co-founder and CCO – we pick a real prospect of ours and watch how you think: research, opener, qualification angle. The closest thing to the actual work.
4. Onsite in Munich/Hamburg (half day) – conversation with Mathis and David, our co-founder and CEO, a working session on a real account, lunch with the team. Travel covered.
5. Offer.