About the job Founding Sales — Sphinx Labs
Founding Sales — Sphinx Labs
Location: San Francisco, CA (Onsite)
Compensation: $140,000 – $250,000 base + competitive equity
Visa Sponsorship: None available
Experience Level: 3–5+ years
Employment Type: Full-Time
About Sphinx Labs
Sphinx Labs is building AI-native compliance automation for regulated financial institutions. Their platform deploys AI analysts that operate across browsers, APIs, and internal systems to automate AML, KYC, KYB, and transaction monitoring workflows.
Market positioning:
- Banks spend approximately $200B annually on compliance labor — Sphinx replaces manual analyst workflows
- 90% reduction in manual compliance work and 4x compliance cost reduction claimed
- Trusted across U.S., Canada, Europe, and LatAm financial institutions
- Seven-figure bank contracts already closed
- Undefeated competitive win rate in live deals
Company profile: Seed-stage, founded 2024, SF-based founders who previously sold an AI company, team includes PhDs, ML experts, and elite technical talent.
About the Role
This is a true founding revenue leadership seat. This is not an AE role with inherited pipeline. This is not an enterprise rep role with heavy support. This is a build-from-zero sales ownership role working in direct partnership with the CEO to define the revenue architecture from scratch.
Core ownership includes:
- Full-cycle enterprise sales — prospecting, cold outbound, discovery, demos, negotiation, closing, and renewals
- Sales process architecture, pipeline design, and playbook creation
- Hiring and coaching first AEs and designing compensation plans
- Territory planning, pricing strategy, and packaging strategy
- Competitive positioning, GTM collaboration, and lead qualification systems
- Voice-of-customer feedback into product
Target customers include banks, fintechs, MSBs, and global regulated financial institutions.
Requirements
- 3–5+ years of enterprise sales experience
- Proven $100K–$1M+ enterprise deal ownership with full-cycle closing
- Procurement, legal, and multi-stakeholder deal navigation experience
- Independent pipeline generation and cold outbound confidence
- Builder mentality and founder-like ownership mindset
- Strong executive communication and board-ready presentation skills
- Strategic sales thinking and willingness for full-time onsite in SF
Nice to Have
- Financial services, fintech, or regtech sales experience
- AML or compliance technology exposure
- Early-stage startup or founding sales experience
- Sales org buildout experience
Target Backgrounds
Strong signals include six and seven-figure deal closers, sales org builders, founder-adjacent sellers, fintech/regtech closers, and independent hunters. Ideal company backgrounds include Ramp and Brex. Behavioral fit: magnetic personality, high urgency, competitive, process-building mindset, strong executive presence, and impact obsession.
This Role Is NOT For
- Enterprise reps dependent on SDR teams
- Candidates without independent prospecting experience
- Profiles with no fintech or financial services familiarity
- Low-ownership sales profiles or candidates unwilling to work onsite
Benefits
- Competitive equity
- Healthcare
- Unlimited PTO
- Lunch, dinner, and snacks
- Annual offsite
- Paid relocation and one month temporary housing
- Latest equipment and workstation setup
Interview Process
- Intro call
- Case study
- Short paid in-person trial
- Offer
Logistics
- Role is fully onsite in San Francisco — please only apply if you can commit to this
- No visa sponsorship available
Shortlisted candidates will be contacted by David Joseph & Co., the recruiting partner managing this search on behalf of Sphinx Labs.