Sapien is building Proof of Quality — the verification layer for AI work

As AI moves from generating answers to taking actions, companies need a reliable way to know whether the output is actually good enough to trust. PoQ gives teams a structured way to define quality, evaluate real AI work, and measure whether it meets their standard.

We’ve spent two years and 195 million tasks learning how hard that problem is.

Now we’re hiring our first dedicated sales lead to help take PoQ to market.

Why now

AI is moving quickly from producing content to doing real work.

As that happens, quality becomes infrastructure. Companies need a way to know whether AI output is actually good enough before it reaches users, systems, transactions, or real-world decisions.

You’ll join while that category is still being defined, with direct access to the founders, meaningful ownership, and the chance to shape how PoQ reaches the market.

The role

You’ll own the sales process end to end: prospecting, discovery, demos, pilots, pricing, negotiation, and close.

Sales today is founder-led. We’ve opened the first doors, run the first demos, and learned where PoQ gets the strongest reaction.

Your job is to take that baseline and build from it.

There is no proven ICP to inherit.

We have strong hypotheses and early signals, but the exact buyer, use case, segment, and price point are still being mapped.

A big part of this role is running enough high-quality conversations to figure that out quickly — then turning the strongest patterns into pilots and revenue.

This is not a role where you inherit a mature pipeline and execute an established playbook.

It is a role for someone who likes being close to the market, learning fast, and helping define where the company wins.

You’re selling and discovering the market at the same time.

Revenue matters. So does signal.

Every customer conversation should make us smarter about:

• who feels the problem most acutely
• what they are actually trying to verify
• what gets them to run a pilot
• what they will pay
• which objections repeat
• what they compare us to
• where PoQ clearly wins (and where it does not)

That feedback shapes product, pricing, and positioning in near real time.

If you need a locked pitch deck, settled price book, and fixed ICP before you can sell, this is probably the wrong role.

If discovering the market while selling into it sounds like the fun part, keep reading.

Credibility matters

You’ll often be selling to technical buyers: AI labs, agent companies, data teams, and engineering leaders.

You should be able to run a technical demo yourself, understand the buyer’s problem beyond the surface level, and handle the second and third question — not just the first.

Your outbound should sound like you understand the company you’re writing to.

You should know when bringing in a founder or engineer materially improves a deal, and when you should handle it yourself.

And you should be comfortable disqualifying quickly when there isn’t a real fit.

We care more about strong conversations that create real signal and business than a CRM full of polite meetings.

Who this is for

We care more about what you’ve actually done than where you’ve worked.

You do not need ten years of enterprise sales or a famous logo on your résumé.

You do need evidence that you can create opportunities and close them.

You’ll likely be a strong fit if you:

• have personally sourced and closed real business
• are comfortable selling technical products to technical buyers
• are strong at discovery and getting to the real customer problem
• use AI tools heavily in your daily work
• think in numbers and patterns
• work quickly and independently
• are comfortable operating without a rigid sales playbook
• can turn customer feedback into useful signal for product and positioning

Experience in AI, data, developer tools, infrastructure, or crypto is a strong plus.

What you’ll own

High-volume market discovery

Build a steady flow of qualified customer conversations through outbound, networks, communities, and other channels.

The goal is not activity for its own sake. It is enough market contact to learn quickly where PoQ has real pull.

Volume matters, but so does relevance. Your outreach should feel informed because it is.

Full-cycle sales

Own the deal from first conversation through discovery, demo, pilot, negotiation, and signed customer.

Bring in founders and engineers when they materially improve the deal.

Pilots

Get strong prospects into useful pilots quickly.

Help define what success looks like, keep pilots moving, and convert successful ones into customers, references, case studies, and expansion opportunities.

Pilots are both commercial opportunities and a way to learn where PoQ creates the most value.

ICP and pricing discovery

Treat every conversation as data.

Track use cases, objections, pricing reactions, buyer profiles, and reasons deals move or stall.

Use that information to sharpen our ICP, positioning, packaging, and pricing.

You will help decide where PoQ wins, not just sell where you are told.

Network

Make intelligent use of Sapien’s existing network of founders, investors, advisors, partners, and communities.

Turn warm introductions into a repeatable channel rather than a one-off advantage.

Sales operations

Own the CRM, pipeline, forecast, and the systems required to understand what is working.

Every stage should be visible. Every meaningful conversion rate should be known.

As the motion becomes more repeatable, you’ll help shape the sales team we build around it.

What we look for

Proof over polish.

Show us deals, pilots, partnerships, or revenue you personally helped create.

We want to understand:

• where the opportunity started
• what you personally owned
• what made the deal difficult
• what the result was
• what the numbers looked like

We also expect:

• daily fluency with tools like ChatGPT and Claude
• strong research and prospecting instincts
• enough technical aptitude to learn PoQ deeply and demo it credibly
• comfort with modern CRM, sequencing, enrichment, and automation tools
• a habit of measuring what works and changing what doesn’t
• speed

How you’ll be measured

This role has a scoreboard, but the scoreboard is not just revenue.

The specific targets will be set together each quarter and will evolve as we learn.

They will fall into four areas:

1. Qualified conversationsAre you consistently creating conversations with companies that have a real reason to buy?

2 Pilots
Are strong prospects moving into structured evaluations of PoQ?

3 Revenue
Are pilots and conversations turning into paying customers?**

1. Market signalAre we learning faster because of the conversations you’re running? Are those insights changing who we target, what we build, how we price, or how we position PoQ?**

If those numbers and signals improve quarter over quarter, you’re succeeding.

Your first 90 days

By the end of your first 90 days, we expect you to have:

• learned PoQ well enough to sell and demo it independently
• absorbed the customer conversations and sales work already done
• launched and iterated on your own outbound motion
• built a meaningful pipeline of qualified conversations
• moved multiple strong prospects toward or into pilots
• developed an evidence-backed view of which segments, buyers, and use cases are showing the strongest pull
• created meaningful commercial progress toward the first repeatable motion

We expect speed, but we care more about learning the market correctly than manufacturing activity.

How to apply

Send us your résumé plus two or three examples of deals or pipelines you actually built.

For each, tell us:

• the starting point
• the result
• the timeframe
• what you personally owned

Screenshots of pipelines, sequences, dashboards, or other real work are welcome.

Then do one more thing:

Pick a company you think should buy Proof of Quality. Tell us why, and write the exact outbound you would send them.

That part matters more to us than a polished cover letter.
‍