Sales Development Representative

Job description

## **ABOUT SPHERE** Every breakthrough in trade infrastructure has followed the same pattern: reduce a transaction cost, expand the market. Containerization for goods. SWIFT for money. Stripe for payments. Compliance is one of the last and largest — and the hardest, because trade rules aren't data to be looked up. They're a complex adaptive system with 190+ sovereign jurisdictions, in different languages, changing constantly, reacting to each other. Sphere built the system that solves it. Our AI (TRAM) ingests global trade law, interprets it, resolves conflicts across jurisdictions, and produces compliance determinations more reliable than human experts. We handle the entire lifecycle — calculation, registration, filing, remittance — at millisecond latency with zero downtime. - **Backed by a16z and YC.** $21M Series A, 30%+ month-over-month growth, customers include ElevenLabs, Replit, Deel, Runway, and Lovable. - **Small team, global surface area**. Everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. San Francisco, five days in office. - **The problem keeps compounding.** Expanding into input tax, withholding, e-invoicing, tariffs — each multiplies the complexity. Tens of millions of transactions today, billions ahead. ## **THE ROLE** Sphere is looking for a Sales Development Representative to help build our outbound sales engine. You'll work directly with our Account Executives and Founder to identify the companies we should be selling to, understand why Sphere matters to them, and create opportunities with CFOs, Controllers, Tax leaders, and other senior finance executives. This isn't a role where you'll inherit a finished playbook and spend your day running someone else's sequences. You'll be expected to prospect relentlessly, learn quickly, experiment with what works, and help us build the playbook as we go. **This role is designed to be a path into an Account Executive position at Sphere.** You'll get exposure to the full sales cycle from day one, learn directly from our AEs and the founder, and take on more responsibility as you prove you're ready. We want to develop our next generation of AEs from within. ## **WHAT YOU'LL DO** - Build and own targeted account lists across our core markets. - Prospect into CFOs, Controllers, Heads of Tax, and other senior finance leaders. - Research companies to understand their business model, global footprint, and why Sphere could matter to them. - Create pipeline through phone, email, LinkedIn, events, and creative outbound. - Work directly with AEs on account strategy, messaging, and multithreading. - Learn how to qualify real business problems rather than simply book meetings. - Get exposure to discovery, demos, deal strategy, negotiation, and closing. - Take on increasing ownership of opportunities as you develop. - Experiment constantly with messaging, targeting, signals, and new ways to create pipeline. - Help build the outbound playbook that future SDRs at Sphere will inherit. ## **REQUIREMENTS** - You want to build a career in B2B sales and eventually own a number. - You're a strong communicator and comfortable starting conversations with people more senior than you. - You're competitive, curious, and willing to put in the reps. - You learn quickly and actively seek feedback. - You're comfortable operating in an environment where the answer isn't always obvious. - You take ownership instead of waiting to be told what to do. - You're excited to work alongside the team in our San Francisco office five days a week. ## **NICE TO HAVES** - Previous SDR experience is helpful, but not required. We're more interested in trajectory than pedigree. - Previous outbound sales or prospecting experience. - Experience at an early stage startup. - Experience selling or working with Finance, Accounting, or Tax teams. - Evidence that you've been exceptional at something competitive, whether that's sales, athletics, academics, entrepreneurship, or something else. ## **WHO YOU ARE** *You'll thrive here if:* - **You're a Dog.** You've been underestimated, gone through struggle, and never stopped running. You have a chip on your shoulder and enormous drive. You look at Stripe, Deel, and Flexport all punting on compliance and think: *good, that means the opportunity is ours.* Hunger beats pedigree. - **Early stage is in your bones.** You've built things where there's no playbook and nobody handing you the answer. You define the problem instead of waiting for instructions. - **You own it end to end.** Give you a goal and you figure out your own path. Small team, global surface area — everyone owns a domain that would be a full team at a larger company. No one tells you how. - **You believe speed and accuracy are both possible.** We're building a complex product that requires robustness and 100% uptime, and we have to build at our customers' pace. Move fast. Don't break things. Both. - **Being in the room is a feature, not a cost.** Five days in SF isn't a policy, it's how the work gets done. The speed and density of collaboration we need doesn't survive over video. *This won't be a fit if:* - You need structure handed to you or ambiguity feels draining rather than motivating - You want to manage people more than own hard problems (we're a flat, experienced team — everyone builds) - You're used to "good enough" shipping (small errors have outsized impact here) - Being in the room five days a week feels like a cost instead of a benefit