(Senior) Director of Sales - Enterprise AI

Key responsibilities

• Own and grow a book of business across hyperscalers, neocloud/inference-as-a-service providers, enterprises, and frontier model vendors in the US

• Manage complex, technical sales cycles involving infrastructure engineering, procurement, capacity planning, and executive stakeholders

• Navigate the layered routes to market inside each account - direct commercial relationship with the buyer, the OEM/ODM partners who build and integrate the physical systems, and any channel or qualification process the buyer runs for compute suppliers

• Translate technical differentiation (power ceiling as revenue ceiling, performance-per-watt, TCO versus incumbent GPU/accelerator options) into commercial outcomes at hyperscaler and neocloud scale

• Identify and close capacity commitments and design-in opportunities, from technical evaluation through deployment

• Build and manage a qualified pipeline, forecast accurately, and report progress through Salesforce

• Represent Axelera at industry events, customer visits, and technical reviews

• Partner closely with product, field applications engineering, and marketing to shape go-to-market strategy for new silicon launches

• Create, negotiate, and drive contracts through to close, working with legal and finance as needed

What Success Looks Like in Year One

• A qualified, forecastable pipeline built substantially from your own network across hyperscaler, neocloud, and frontier model accounts

• At least one significant capacity commitment or design-in secured

• Established presence at 2–3 key industry events representing Axelera

Qualifications

• 10–15+ years of semiconductor or compute infrastructure sales experience, with a track record selling to hyperscalers, neoclouds, enterprises, and/or frontier AI labs

• Fluency in how routes to market layer within a single account - direct commercial ownership of the buyer relationship, working through or alongside OEM/ODM system builders, and understanding any channel/qualification process the buyer runs — not just experience running separate direct, channel, and OEM motions in isolation

• Existing relationships with US hyperscaler, neocloud, or frontier model vendor buyers - infrastructure, procurement, or technical leaders evaluating customer inference silicon - that you can activate quickly

• Experience selling technical products with long, capacity-driven sales cycles, ideally AI/ML accelerators, GPUs, custom silicon, or related infrastructure

• Prior experience at a semiconductor chip company or hyperscaler, neocloud, enterprise, or frontier lab accounts -established or startup

• Comfort operating in a fast-moving startup environment with limited internal infrastructure

• Strong written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate deep technical concepts (power ceiling, TCO, performance-per-watt) for both engineering and executive audiences. Heavy use of AI skills and technology to drive efficiency in your role.

• Willingness to travel regularly for customer visits and industry events