Account Executive - Europe

Posted 3 Days Ago
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Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, DEU
In-Office
Senior level
Artificial Intelligence • Automotive • Computer Vision • Industrial
AI-powered visual inspection software helping manufacturers achieve zero-defect production.
The Role
Own SwitchOn’s European market entry and revenue growth, beginning with DACH automotive and CPG manufacturers. Build the ICP, create pipeline, prospect enterprise accounts, conduct technical discovery, coordinate feasibility trials, develop techno-commercial solutions, negotiate, and close deals. Establish European partners, navigate regulatory and procurement requirements, maintain CRM and forecasts, convert pilots into rollouts, and help shape the future European sales team and go-to-market strategy.
Summary Generated by Built In
About SwitchOn

SwitchOn helps precision manufacturing industries drastically reduce their manufacturing defects through a one-of-a-kind field-trainable AI system. Automotive and CPG companies globally employ 25%+ of their workforce inspecting product quality, and yet face 500+ customer complaints per year per site, leading to $120M+ in losses.

Our DeepInspect platform uses high-speed cameras and AI-on-the-Edge to inspect complex surface and assembly defects at 800+ parts per minute. Critically, it is trained by the quality inspectors themselves, on the shop floor — no data scientists, no vendor lock-in on every new part. Leading global manufacturers including SKF, Bosch, AB Carter, Unilever, P&G, Diageo, ITC, and Maruti already use SwitchOn to give quality superpowers to their inspectors.

We are Series-B funded, profitable in our core market, and have proven the platform at scale across 100+ sites in India with deployments already extending into Europe and Southeast Asia.


About the role
​

This is our founding commercial role in Europe. You will be based in Germany and own the entire European market — starting with the DACH automotive and CPG belt, then expanding into France, Italy, Benelux, the Nordics, CEE, and the UK as we prove the motion.

You are joining at the very beginning of our European journey. There is early traction and reference-able global logos to work with, but no established European pipeline, no local team, and no playbook yet. You will build all three. This is a role for someone who wants to plant a flag, not inherit a territory.

Because DeepInspect changes how a plant runs quality, decisions are taken at the top — Plant Manager, Head of Quality, Director and VP of Manufacturing and Operations, and often the CFO. You will run the full cycle: market research and prospecting, technical discovery, application feasibility and trials, techno-commercial solutioning, negotiation, and closure — supported by our application engineering team.

You will report directly to the Co-Founder, and your feedback will shape our European product, pricing, and go-to-market strategy from the ground up.


What You Will Own

Market Entry & Pipeline Creation

  • Own the European revenue number and build the pipeline that delivers it, essentially from a standing start.
  • Define our European ICP: which countries, industries, sub-segments, and applications we go after first — and where we deliberately do not play yet.
  • Day-to-day prospecting into Automotive OEMs and Tier-1/Tier-2 suppliers, CPG/FMCG, pharma, and electronics manufacturers; build and continually improve the outbound motion.
  • Represent SwitchOn at the trade shows that matter in this market — Hannover Messe, automatica, VISION Stuttgart, Achema, interpack — and convert them into real pipeline.
  • Competitor and market research: we are entering the home market of the global machine-vision incumbents. Know them cold, and know exactly where we win.

Enterprise Selling

  • Reach and build credibility with Plant Managers, Heads of Quality, VP/Director Manufacturing, and CXO-level stakeholders.
  • Run technical discovery on the shop floor: understand the defect, the line speed, the inspection standard, and the cost of getting it wrong.
  • Establish application feasibility through demonstrations and on-site trials, coordinating with our application engineering team.
  • Own techno-commercial solutioning, pricing, commercial negotiation, and closure against quarterly quota.
  • Convert single-line pilots into multi-line and multi-plant rollouts — and use European wins to open the customer’s other European sites.

Building the European Foundation

  • Navigate what is genuinely different about selling in Europe: works council (Betriebsrat) engagement when cameras go onto a line, GDPR and data-residency questions, EU AI Act readiness, CE marking and machine-safety expectations, and formal procurement and vendor-onboarding processes.
  • Build the channel: identify and develop system integrators and industrial-automation partners in DACH and beyond to extend our coverage.
  • Feed structured market intelligence back to Product, Engineering, and leadership — you are our eyes and ears in Europe.
  • Help define what our European team should look like next, and help us hire it.
  • Maintain rigorous CRM hygiene (Zoho) and an honest, defensible forecast. With one person in a new market, forecast integrity matters more, not less.

What Success Looks Like

In your first 90 days: you have a clear point of view on our European ICP and priority countries, a qualified pipeline started, and your first on-site technical discoveries completed.

By month 6: first European application feasibility trials are running, at least one pilot is signed, and we have a working European playbook — pricing, objections, procurement path, and partner shortlist.

By month 12: you have delivered your number, converted at least one pilot into a multi-line or multi-site rollout, and made the case for what the European team needs to look like next.


Requirements
Must have
  • 5–10 years in B2B sales into manufacturing, as a Sales Engineer, Account Executive, or Sales Manager — with a track record of carrying and hitting a quota.
  • Deep experience in the DACH industrial market, ideally automotive and/or CPG/FMCG, with existing credibility on the shop floor.
  • Solution-selling and value-based selling capability on a techno-commercial sale with a long, multi-stakeholder cycle.
  • Working knowledge of manufacturing processes, quality systems, and industrial automation.
  • Fluent German and English — German is essential for plant-level conversations in this market.
  • Hands-on discipline with CRM and sales tooling (Zoho, Salesforce, HubSpot or equivalent).
  • Based in Germany with existing right to work in the EU, and willing to travel roughly 50% across Europe.
  • Comfortable being the first person in a new market — self-directed, resourceful, and happy without an existing playbook.
Strong plus
  • Machine-vision or camera sales experience — for example Keyence, Cognex, Basler, SICK, Omron, Banner, ISRA Vision, MVTec, Baumer, IDS, or an AI-native inspection player.
  • Industry 4.0, IIoT, MES, or ERP sales experience.
  • An existing network of plant and quality leaders at European manufacturers.
  • Experience selling a hybrid hardware-plus-software / SaaS commercial model.
  • Experience launching a non-European vendor into the European market, or working across a distributed team with a significant time-zone offset.
  • Additional European languages — French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, or Polish.
  • Engineering degree (Electronics / Instrumentation / Electrical / Mechanical) or equivalent technical grounding.
How you work
  • A builder — you are energised, not unsettled, by a blank page.
  • High integrity and transparency — you call your number honestly, in good quarters and bad.
  • Technically curious — you enjoy getting into the detail of a defect and a line, not just the commercial conversation.
  • Comfortable working closely with a team several time zones away, and generous with the context you share back.


Benefits
Why Join Us
  • Own an entire continent. This is a founding commercial role with the scope, autonomy, and upside that go with it.
  • You are not selling a concept — the platform is proven at scale with Fortune 500 manufacturers and 100+ live sites.
  • Work directly with the Co-Founder, with real influence on European product, pricing, and go-to-market.
  • Sell a product with hard, provable ROI: fewer defects, fewer customer complaints, higher throughput — and quality inspectors who are made more capable rather than replaced.
  • Meaningful ESOP participation at a post-Series-B stage, plus a competitive base and uncapped commission.

SwitchOn is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applicants from all backgrounds.



Skills Required

  • 5–10 years of B2B sales experience in manufacturing as a Sales Engineer, Account Executive, or Sales Manager, with a record of carrying and achieving quota
  • Deep experience in the DACH industrial market, ideally automotive or CPG/FMCG
  • Solution-selling and value-based selling experience in complex, multi-stakeholder, long-cycle techno-commercial sales
  • Working knowledge of manufacturing processes, quality systems, and industrial automation
  • Fluent German and English
  • Hands-on experience with CRM and sales tools such as Zoho, Salesforce, HubSpot, or equivalent
  • Based in Germany with existing right to work in the EU
  • Willingness to travel approximately 50% across Europe
  • Self-directed and comfortable building a new market without an established playbook
  • Machine-vision or camera sales experience
  • Industry 4.0, IIoT, MES, or ERP sales experience
  • Existing network of plant and quality leaders at European manufacturers
  • Experience selling hybrid hardware-plus-software or SaaS commercial models
  • Experience launching a non-European vendor into Europe or working across distributed teams and time zones
  • Additional European language skills, including French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, or Polish
  • Engineering degree in Electronics, Instrumentation, Electrical, or Mechanical Engineering, or equivalent technical grounding
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The Company
Bengaluru, Karnataka
78 Employees
Year Founded: 2017

What We Do

SwitchOn (Abee Research Labs Private Limited) is a Bengaluru-based AI software company founded in 2017, helping manufacturers eliminate defects through AI-powered visual quality inspection. At the core of SwitchOn's offering is DeepInspect®, a SaaS-based AI visual inspection platform purpose-built for high-speed production environments. DeepInspect automates the detection of visual defects, performs dimensional checks and supports thermal inspection replacing slow, error-prone manual inspection processes and outdated rule-based vision systems. What sets DeepInspect apart is its unique training approach: it requires only ~200 good product images to get started no defect samples needed. A new inspection model can be trained and deployed in approximately 45 minutes, compared to weeks or months with traditional systems. Once live, DeepInspect delivers 99.5% real-world inspection accuracy at throughputs of 1,100+ units per minute, making it viable for even the most demanding production lines. SwitchOn serves manufacturers across Automotive, Pharma, Electronics and FMCG industries, with deployments spanning 50+ plants across India, North America, Europe and Southeast Asia. To date, DeepInspect has inspected over 1 billion products globally, saving thousands of manual inspection hours and supporting customers' zero-defect manufacturing goals. Customers include global enterprises such as Unilever, ITC, SKF, Diageo and Sansera Engineering. The platform integrates with existing camera hardware and supports compliance with SOC 2, ISO 9001:2015, CE and 21 CFR Part 11 standards, making it enterprise-ready from day one. Backed by Axilor Ventures and Pi Ventures and recognized by NASSCOM Emerge 50, Google for Startups AI First and NVIDIA Inception, SwitchOn is a Series A-funded company with a 100+ person team and ~$1.5M ARR, scaling rapidly with marquee manufacturing customers worldwide.

Why Work With Us

At SwitchOn, you work on real Industrial AI solving defect elimination for global manufacturers like Unilever, P&G & Tata. We're ownership-driven, fast-paced & transparent with equity benefits, full health insurance & company meals. Join an early-stage team converging IoT & AI to transform manufacturing.

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