Founding Growth Lead, AI Startup

$170k - $220k

San Francisco, CA

Full-time

2-10

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🔴 Closes on:

Jul 16, 2026

Job Description:

A fast-growing AI startup in San Francisco is hiring a Founding Growth Lead to build its demand generation and growth engine from the ground up.

The company is building technical infrastructure for production AI systems, helping businesses evaluate, monitor, and improve how AI workflows perform in real-world environments.

The product is already gaining strong traction with enterprise customers, high-growth technology companies, and technical teams operating at serious scale. Founder-led sales are working. Inbound interest is working. The next major unlock is building a repeatable, scalable growth engine.

That is where you come in.

This is not a traditional marketing role. This is not an SDR role. This is not a role where you inherit a polished playbook and simply optimise it.

This is a founding growth seat for someone who can create pipeline, build systems, use AI-native tools fluently, and turn a strong technical product into a consistent commercial engine.

You will work directly with the founders and help shape how the market discovers, understands, and engages with the company.

The role

You will own the early growth motion across outbound, demand generation, content distribution, GTM systems, events, and ecosystem building.

The current sales motion is founder-led, and the founders will remain close to customer conversations, especially early on. Your job is to build the engine around that motion: sharper targeting, better outbound, stronger campaigns, smarter workflows, better market visibility, and more high-quality enterprise pipeline.

This role is ideal for someone who enjoys zero-to-one work.

You should be comfortable with ambiguity, fast testing, imperfect systems, short feedback loops, and high ownership. You should be the kind of person who sees a messy GTM problem and immediately starts building, testing, measuring, and improving.

Some days you will be building outbound systems. Some days you will be refining account segmentation. Some days you will be shipping content. Some days you will be researching buyer personas. Some days you will be at conferences, dinners, and in-person events. Some days you will be testing unconventional ideas that would scare more traditional marketing teams.

The right person will love that.

What you will own

Outbound and pipeline generation

You will design, build, and run multi-channel outbound across email, LinkedIn, events, and targeted account lists.

You will be expected to create real pipeline, not just activity.

That means building campaigns, testing messaging, improving segmentation, tracking results, and constantly working out what is actually converting.

You will treat outbound like a product: build, test, measure, refine, repeat.

GTM systems and growth infrastructure

You will build modern GTM workflows using enrichment tools, sequencing platforms, automation systems, AI research tools, and outbound infrastructure.

This may include tools such as Clay, Apollo, HeyReach, and similar platforms, but the exact toolkit matters less than how you think.

You need to be genuinely AI-native.

The company wants someone who already uses AI and automation as part of their daily work, not someone who is "interested in learning about it one day."

You should be comfortable using AI for research, list building, segmentation, copy testing, workflow design, campaign iteration, and speed.

Enterprise demand generation

The company sells into serious customers, including larger organisations and high-growth technology businesses.

You will help create demand across technical, operational, and commercial buyers.

This includes targeting senior leaders, understanding business pain points, building account lists, shaping outbound messaging, and finding ways to create urgency in a technical market.

You do not need to be a classic enterprise sales rep, but you do need to understand how to create credibility with senior buyers.

Content, brand, and market visibility

You will help turn product wins, market insights, technical credibility, customer stories, and founder expertise into content and distribution.

This could include written content, founder-led posts, SEO, AI search visibility, ecosystem content, event follow-up, customer stories, and creative campaigns.

The company does not want generic SaaS marketing.

They want sharp thinking, strong writing, creative angles, and fast execution.

Events and ecosystem

You will help the company build presence across relevant AI, enterprise operations, automation, workflow, and technical communities.

You may attend conferences, dinners, meetups, customer events, and founder-led meetings.

You should be comfortable representing the company professionally in front of senior buyers, partners, founders, and technical teams.

Must-haves

You must have 3+ years of professional GTM experience. This is a hard requirement. This is not suitable for a new grad, someone with only internships, or someone who has not yet owned meaningful GTM work in a professional setting.
You must have clear demand generation experience. The company needs evidence, not vague claims. You should be able to point to specific campaigns, systems, experiments, pipeline numbers, meetings generated, revenue influenced, outbound performance, content results, event outcomes, or growth initiatives you personally helped drive.
You must have strong outbound experience. This role needs someone who can create pipeline from scratch. If your background is purely brand, comms, lifecycle, product marketing, or content without demand generation, this is unlikely to be the right fit.
You must be AI-native in your workflow. You should already be using AI tools and automation to move faster, research better, write better, test faster, and build smarter GTM systems.
You must be data-driven and experimental. You need to be able to explain what you tested, why you tested it, what happened, what the numbers showed, and what you changed next.
You must be creative and unconventional. The company is open to bold growth moves. They want someone who can think beyond standard outbound sequences and tired SaaS playbooks.
You must be scrappy and resourceful. There will not be a large GTM team, a mature process, or a perfect operating system waiting for you. You will be building the system.
You must be a strong communicator. You should be clear, personable, commercially sharp, and credible enough to eventually join customer conversations and represent the company in front of enterprise buyers.
You must be based in San Francisco or genuinely committed to relocating. This is an onsite role. The founders want this person in the room, building closely with the team.

Nice-to-haves

Experience in AI infrastructure, enterprise AI, workflow automation, customer operations, support technology, technical SaaS, or products sold into operational teams.
Existing relationships with buyers across operations, automation, customer support, customer experience, enterprise transformation, or technical leadership teams.
Experience targeting large enterprise accounts or high-growth technology companies.
Experience at an early-stage startup where you had to build from scratch.
Former founder experience or unusually high-ownership startup experience.
Experience using tools such as Clay, Apollo, HeyReach, enrichment platforms, sequencing tools, AI research tools, or similar GTM infrastructure.
Experience turning technical products into clear, compelling commercial messaging.

This is probably not the right role if

You have less than 3 years of professional GTM experience.
You have not personally contributed to measurable demand generation results.
You have only worked in one GTM channel, for example only email or only LinkedIn.
You need a mature playbook, large team, polished brand, or detailed instructions before you can move.
You are not already using AI tools in your GTM workflow.
You prefer traditional marketing campaigns over fast, scrappy, measurable growth experiments.
You are uncomfortable with events, conferences, in-person relationship building, or working closely with founders.
You are not based in San Francisco and are not genuinely serious about relocating.
You are looking for a remote-first role.
You are strong on strategy decks but light on execution.
You are uncomfortable with technical products or technical buyers.

Why this role matters

AI systems are moving quickly into real business workflows, but companies need confidence that those systems can perform safely, reliably, and consistently in production.

This company is building part of that trust layer.

The technical product is already resonating. The founder-led sales motion is working. The market is moving fast. Now the company needs a growth builder who can turn that momentum into a repeatable commercial machine.

For the right person, this is a rare opportunity to become the first true growth hire inside a high-potential AI startup and shape the commercial motion from the beginning.

You will not inherit someone else's playbook.

You will build it.